Where rendang comes from
Rendang belongs to the Minangkabau people of West Sumatra, the same cooking that gives us nasi padang. It is a dish for patience: beef is simmered with coconut milk and a ground spice paste, and stirred for hours as the liquid slowly cooks away.
In Minang homes it is food for gatherings and celebrations, cooked in big pots and shared. It travelled with Minang families across the region, including to Kampong Glam, where our family started cooking it from a push cart in the 1920s.
What makes rendang authentic
There is no single official recipe, and every family guards its own. But a few things are shared by rendang cooked the traditional way, and they are worth looking for.
- Time. Rendang is cooked low and slow for hours. Rushed rendang tastes like curry, not rendang.
- Colour. As the coconut milk cooks down and the spices caramelise, the gravy darkens to a deep brown.
- Texture. The sauce clings to the meat rather than pooling around it, and the beef is tender enough to pull apart.
- Depth. You should taste coconut, chilli, lemongrass, galangal and spice together, rich rather than just hot.
Rendang, kalio and gulai
In Minangkabau cooking, these three are related. Gulai is a looser, curry-like dish with plenty of gravy. Kalio is a halfway stage, braised longer and thicker but still saucy. Rendang is cooked furthest of all, until the gravy is reduced and dark.
That is why you will often see both on a nasi padang counter. On ours, alongside the beef rendang, you will usually find ayam kalio, chicken braised slowly in a rich, spiced coconut gravy. See what else is cooking on our menu.
How we cook ours
Our beef rendang is slow-cooked for hours in coconut and spice until dark, tender and deep. The recipe comes down from Haji Marlian Athar and Hajjah Rosmah Mailu, who sold nasi padang in Kampong Glam from the 1920s, and it has stayed in the family for three generations.
When CNA Lifestyle wrote about us in April 2024, the headline started with it: "Sabar Menanti's nasi padang is literally worth the wait, from beef rendang to ayam bakar". Read more about the family on our story page.
Eating it, or ordering it in
At the counter, rendang goes over steamed rice with whatever else you pick. A plate of rendang, sayur lodeh and sambal goreng gives you rich, gentle and spicy all at once.
For gatherings, beef rendang is part of our full catering set-up at $20 per person (minimum 40 people), and it comes in our Beef bento set at $11 with rice, sayur lodeh, telor belado and sambal belado. Details are on our catering page.
