Sibu Tales : My Father and Beef Recipes

My late father was keen on food from diverse cultures. Each time he travelled, he would bring back a recipe or two, and taught my mother how to cook them. He was especially good with beef dishes.

One of the beef dishes he presented to us was beef dish cooked in a tin plate over fire. This was before 1960 and way before the sizzling plates came into our Sibu world.

The other dish he was able to prepare with tips from his Malay brother Abang Koh, was the rendang which we would get from our neighbours every Hari Raya.

My father was one of the least prejudiced person I have ever met when it comes to food. He loved trying out food given by friends and often he would go to the kampong (Nangka and Hilir) to find out for himself how his Malay and Melanau friends cooked their curries. Hence he and my mother would often come up with curries cooked to their tastes.

This Hari Raya I had a chance to taste a fantastic Beef dish, with a Kelantanese origin. AND like him I like to try out the dish, creating the taste but now with the help of the Internet I can look for similar recipes or get a friend to email me a similar recipe.

A friend kindly sent me another recipe called Beef Kuzi and here it is..It might not be the same as Mrs. Kip's dish...and she also alerted me to the Kuzi paste below:

 

Kuzi Daging

Ingredients for 5 pax
1/2 kg good cut of beef
4 tbsp remaph kerutuk
1/2 bombay onion
2 tbsp pounded chillies
3 cups of thick coconut milk
2 tbsp kerisik
some gula melaka
some soy sauce

 
 pounded ingredients:
1/2 bombay onion
2 pips of garlic
1/2 inch of ginger
1 stick of cinnamon
2 star anise
3 cloves
3 candlenut
and
3 tbsp of cooking oil (blend with some ghee,some butter too)++


Method:
 1. Slice beef into cubes
2. Pound onions, garlic and ginger and mix with rempah kerutuk
3. Heat up the oil in the pot
4. Add (2) to the hot oil, stir fry until the ingredients are fragrant
5. Add the beef and the coconut milk. Cook until the sauce is thickened.
6. Add soy sauce, gula melaka, kerisik. Cook a further 15 minutes.


May be you would like to try out this recipe....or you can think of a story related to the times when your father taught your mother how to prepare a new dish!!