Whilst most of the country was celebrating Heritage Day in alluring clouds of braai smoke, I decided to feed my soul – and a group of friends – instead. (Although we did plonk some boerie and lamb chops on the coals in the late afternoon.)

After writing about an awesome beef rendang last Wednesday, I craved it all week and thought I would challenge chef Virgil’s rendition that I ate at Indochine.

Years ago when working in a hotel kitchen owned by a Dutch family, they exposed me to some of their favourite Indonesian dishes. This dish was one of them.

After much research on this wonderful curry, I eventually took four recipes and made them into what I thought could be the ideal one, and spent a worthy four hours in the kitchen preparing the perfect rendang.

It really is quite easy. After cutting 4kg of shin into 4cm pieces and then blitzing a fresh spice mix together, you caramelise the meat and slowly let the whole lot simmer in coconut milk for four hours. The curry evolves from a light yellow colour to a golden brown and eventually the sauce reduces away. The last part of the process is when the very soft meat is left to cook in the natural oil, which coats it.

With the amount of dried chilli in the spice mix and the sweetness of the coconut and palm sugar, this dish showcases the traditional Asian balance of flavours.

I made a tapioca sambal to go with it, which I drenched in a soya, chilli, coriander, garlic, lime and sesame dressing. The pearls turned jet black and glistening, and although I warned my guests that it was an acquired taste, the entire bowl was devoured.

To go with that I managed to get my hands on two green paw paws with which I made a green paw paw salad tossed with purple basil and a bit of green, too, as well as mint, fresh coriander, lime, rice vinegar, ginger and palm sugar.

It was to be a real feast. (For me, both the cooking and the eating bit feed the soul.) So a cucumber gado-gado salad was also prepared and munched, made with roasted peanuts and coconut milk and finished off with a pile of delicate microplaned fresh coconut. Dessert was homemade strawberry ice cream.

And last week I was sent Nigella Lawson’s new Italian cook book Nigellissima to review, so after having a good read and some inspiration, the modest, shallow and rather plain (but very tasty) cinnamon almond cake turned out pretty well and very moist (with olive oil as the fat used) and the chocolate cake was also a success.

Both are dairy- and wheat-free, took only 30 minutes to bake, and 10 minutes to finish up every crumb. That makes for a happy soul!

Happy baking, cooking and eating.
Abigail

PS) If you don’t have four hours to spare for a rendang, read my quick tip on making speedy and easy curries.

Photographs: Simon Wong, Chatirygirl, Gloria Cbada-Leman, Chandikra Nair and Zoyachubby