Indonesian Dish - Rawon

I had saved these buah keluak from my previous trip to KK market, the stall holder said that the keluak flesh can be kept in the freezer for a long time and they won't harden.

True enough when I took these out they were still soft after being in the freezer for almost 5 months. The reason is the keluak flesh has a high oil content and they stay soft even at sub zero temperatures. I used the keluak to try an Indonesian recipe that I found in an old nonya recipe book called Lauk Rawan (Rawon) as I wanted to see if there were other dishes that used buah keluak. Rawon, beef in black soup, is an Eastern Javanese dish and is considered a delicacy. I forgot to add the ketchup manis so mine still had a nice reddish tinge to it and I didn't want too much gravy so I made mine drier. It was really good with rice.

Ingredients

3 tbs vegetable oil

4 slices of galangal

1 lemon grass stalk

2 kaffir lime leaves

1/2 kg beef shin cut into slices

Spice-paste

6 keluak meat only

10 shallots

5 cloves garlic

1 cm turmeric

5 red chillies

1 tbsp ketchup manis

Instructions

Heat the oil and fry the pounded spice-taste for a minute or two. Add lemon grass and kaffir lime leaves. Fry till fragrant. Add the beef and 1 1/2 L water. Cook on low heat until meat tender and flavor of spices have been absorbed. If level of water drops too much, add hot water.

To Serve

Rawon is accompained by plain boiled or steamed rice, empal (spicy, fried beef slice), salted duck eggs, telor pindang (soy egg), shrimp krupuk (crackers), a raw vegetable salad of beansprouts, sliced cucumbers and sambal terasi (sambal belachan). Indonesian call it Nasi Rawon.