A dish called “slow cooker beef in soy sauce” probably doesn’t sound all that appealing. But call it “daging masak kicap” and your ears will perk up and your mouth water.
Beef in soy sauce is not difficult to make, which is likely why it commonly features in any bovine-eating household. It is an essential dish in any self-respecting nasi campur restaurant, and you won’t be hard-pressed to find it even in fancier Malay restaurants.
It is not just about the kicap, even if it does play an essential role – it’s also about the spices, the aromatics, and the beef itself. Cook it too quickly and these subtle flavours won’t come out right; take too long and the meat might end up as tough as leather.
With the need to balance time and flavour, why not give it the slow-cooker treatment?
Ingredients
- 500g beef, cut into 2cm-3cm cubes
- 4 cloves garlic, diced
- 1 medium red onion, peeled and sliced thin
- 1 stalk lemongrass, white part only, crushed
- 2.5cm ginger, peeled and sliced thin
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 2 star anise
- 60g sweet soy sauce
- 2 teaspoons tamarind paste mixed with 240ml water
- 2 tablespoons cooking oil
- salt
Final ingredients
- 1 large tomato, quartered
- 1 large red onion, peeled and quartered
- 2 large red chillies, stems removed and sliced into halves
Method
- Turn on your slow cooker and select the “sauté/sear at high temperature” function. If your cooker does not have this function, prepare the next five steps on your stovetop in a wok or pan prior to transferring everything to the slow cooker.
- Add cooking oil and let it heat up until tiny bubbles form.
- Add garlic, sliced red onions, ginger, lemongrass, cinnamon stick and star anise. Sauté until the onions soften.
- Add the cubed beef and let it brown for a few minutes until all sides are seared. This will give the beef extra flavour.
- Give the tamarind paste and water a good mix using your fingers, making sure to squeeze the pulp for maximum flavour. Sieve the contents into the pot or pan, squeezing out the remaining juices from the tamarind pulp.
- Add soy sauce and give everything a good stir. You may need to add a bit of salt. Taste the mixture and, if needed, add salt in quarter-teaspoon increments, stirring and tasting before adding more.
- Set your slow cooker to high temperature and leave the ingredients to cook for at least three hours.
- After the cooking duration, open the pot and add the final ingredients. Cook on high temperature for another 30 minutes. The tomatoes, onion and chilli add colour and texture to an otherwise dark dish. You may choose to add this prior to the three-hour cooking time, but this will result in a softer consistency of the final ingredients.
- Serve with hot white rice.
Tips
- If you would like to prepare this dish overnight, set your slow cooker on low temperature and let it cook for six hours, plus an additional hour for the final ingredients.
- Potatoes and beef are excellent together. Add peeled, cubed potatoes into the pot before the long cooking time. You may need to add extra water as potatoes absorb liquid, especially if you want the dish to have lots of sauce. Make sure you have enough liquid to cover the potatoes.
This article first appeared in butterkicap.com.
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