Rendang Made With Jackfruit, Smoked Duck? Roots Of This Versatile Dish | Southeast Asia On A Plate

it was once voted the most delicious food in the world wow this is so good from high-end restaurants to roadside stalls randang is a common find in this part of the world across Indonesia Malaysia Singapore and even in some parts of the Philippines hi uh can I get nassie with padel par and tumang can I also get the randang yes please now randang is really a dish for the common people yet hidden within this is a backstory that's anything but simple I am Archie a chef and culinary Adventurer and in this episode of southeast Asia on a plate I'll be unearthing the complex story behind this delicious concoction how is Trang closely linked to our very human yearning for travel and what surprising role did European Colonial Powers play in making rang more fiery than it originally was join me as I uncover the fascinating stories randang has to tell us about this part of southeast Asia and its people my hometown jakara it's a treasure Trove of food for [Music] thought one of those Treasures is beef it's on almost every plate along these streets as a chef I can only dream that one day one of my culinary inventions would have such Universal appeal it makes me curious how was this crowd favorite created to [Music] begin to find out out I reach out to two prominent residents of the renang universe [Music] hello meet Reno andam also known as The randang Traveler after this International awardwinning book that she wrote [Music] according to Renault the highlands of West Sumatra is the home of here in Jakarta restaurants like the one where in are known as Padang restaurants named after a city 1,300 km away from Jakarta Padang is the capital of the West Sumatra Province it is home to the minang Cabo people also known as minang they are the seventh largest of Indonesia's 1,340 recognized ethnic groups and their culture is closely tied to the history of Randa [Music] one translation of moranto is to migrate it means to leave the community the idea though is that you leave the community to cheki to look for fortune or prosperity to prove yourself it can mean getting an education it could be setting up a business it could be uh working as a merchant or a Trader it's a cultural practice in which primarily men leave the me anaba Homeland to prove themselves to go throughout the archipelago including Singapore and [Music] Malaysia [Music] jamb [Music] it seems like rang had a dual purpose besides being sustenance for longdistance travels it is also a highlight at import minang traditional rituals how did renang become so important it's been a long time since I've seen randang served in a traditional setting which is why I'm heading to the home of the minan Cabo people West [Music] Sumatra it's lunchtime I am at the kitchen that's reputed to serve the best rang in Padang and I discovered that the rang appetite it carries to is huge wow wow and that's how much unang people eat every day in this place alone that's a lot and within this 80 kilos there might be more to chew on than just mou fulls of [Music] [Applause] meat [Music] ch p l [Music] uh we always think of randang as a dish but in the minang language renang comes from the word mandang which means to cook slowly because traditionally cooking randang is painstaking and methodical and sometimes it takes an entire Village to cook a decent partt of [Music] it [Music] [Music] I am in the agricultural area of tanah datar situated in the middle of West Sumatra the minank Cabo people just like their forefathers spend their days treading through muddy rice fields during planting season but after the rice is harvested they will wait through the mud one final time for this this bull race or should I say Bull Run is set to be a form of Thanksgiving for a good harvest others say it's to showcase the quality of the herd because much like a sports car Bulls are a status symbol for their owners and are not used for farming [Applause] anymore [Applause] social standing aside there are other reasons why the people here hold Bine creatures close to their heart the name minan cabal if you break it down into minang and cabal means Victorious Buffalo and the The Legend is that there was a conflict between two uh neighboring communities often in the story the other neighboring Community is Java and they decide instead of having a battle instead of losing human lives let's have a buffalo fight and they all agree to this and the minan cabal people decide instead of sending out a fierce bull to participate in the Buffalo fight they instead take a a calf and they don't feed it for several days till it becomes very thirsty very hungry in some of the Legends they sharpen the the horns in other Legends they put knives and then it's the day of the battle the other community shows up with their Bull and the bull is fierce and huge and the Min aabal people release the small calf and the calf thinking that they can get food from the large bull runs over to hopefully find milk and goes in with the horns and Spears the the larger Bull and kills it therefore Victorious Buffalo so important are bulls to the minan Cabo that the design of their homes represents the horns of the Buffalo but Aesthetics aside these traditional homes are also said to be earthquake resistant their foundations are not embedded into the ground instead the wooden structures are placed on a flat stone allowing them to ship flexibly in a quake it's a form of architecture meant to suit the geography of Lum min's Homeland West Sumatra is situated in one of Indonesia's earthquake prone areas sitting close to moving tectonic plates southeast Asia lies at the junction of four such plates the shifting plate created 180 active volcanoes in the region close to 130 of these live volcanoes which are part of what's known as the Pacific Ring of Fire are in Indonesia one of them is Mount marapi despite mari's constant lava spills the minank Caba folk continue living at the foot of the mountain to them danger is a tradeoff for the rich volcanic soil they are mostly farmers who are always thankful for being spared with each eruption the latest as recent as December 2023 so today there's to be a prayer and Thanksgiving ceremony I've been invited to attend and also observe these women preparing their beef rang that's to be served [Applause] later [Music] [Music] [Music] spee [Music] I am really really not used to this side of [Music] cooking anabal culture is matenal and what that means essentially is that they have uh quite a bit of power within the society and culture upon marriage you usually live in the the women's household also uh property inheritance goes through the female line and not the male line they own the rice fields and so you see a lot uh women are very strongly involved in the economy in businesses they uh are the primary leaders of society 4 hours has passed since I went to collect firewood and the only thing that has happened with the constant steering and bubbling is that the mixture has thickened yeah so this is the second stage of the rundown making process and it's turning into a Calo you can identify this by the color of the coconut oil it's red in color it's rising to the top and the coconut fat it turns into into this very very thick liquid which is really good to [Music] eat the key process of cooking renang takes several hours from goua which is a thinner Curry it goes to Calo which is a thicker form of goui it then continues bubbling until there's no more liquid only drier spiced meat so we started from daylight and this is already nighttime and that's how long randang takes it's a long long time but to the cooks getting it right is a reward for [Music] at the end of the ceremony the rang which is considered an honored food is served from spices to meat because of what the ingredients represent it takes pride of place amongst the dishes M this is so good so the flavor of this rang is so complex it's spicy but not too spicy very flavorful full of taste and you can really taste the effort that is made by the IU IU so good historically beef was used in randang but today in The Villages of West Sumatra The Rundown that is part of everyday meals depends on what lies at your [Music] [Music] doorstep [Music] and these are the ferns that Poppy who runs a rundown business in Lake manino is referring to known as fiddlehead ferns they are commonly found growing on the banks of the lake living off the abundance of Mother Nature is very much the way of life here and is reflected in the creative varities of rang made by the women here including Poppy's mom whom I'm about to meet [Music] hello [Music] [Music] for changing [Music] yeah [Music] for my meal with Poppy's family has made me realized how creative Min home chefs can be in making use of local ingredients to make Randa but as I navigate Kat a local Road famous for its sharp turns there is a Twist in the tale of rang I hadn't seen coming one of the key ingredients that gives renang its spicy cake May well be a lot more foreign then I thought I am on the road from the highlands of Mount marapi in West Sumatra on a quest for the story of Renda and next up I am meeting a local historian H I am about to find out that the spicy cake I associate with rang surprisingly has rather Cosmopolitan Roots roots that reflect the Region's role as a critical note in a global Maritime trade of the past okay for [Music] yeah in hindsight it really shouldn't come as a surprise to me that minank Cabos of the past would take so ready to a new foreign ingredient after all the tradition of marantau is ingrained in their culture a tradition that urges young people to leave their villages to seek their Fortunes in fact I have learned that it's one of the driving forces behind rang's popularity throughout the region because the way renang is originally cooked makes the meat dry enough to last for the Morant Journeys by the time boy boys are becoming teenagers they will often go and live outside the mother's household in a sural uh basically an Islamic prayer hall or and in the sural they will then study they then will often go on a migration somewhere and that might mean down into the Straits of Mala where you could find opportunity which is why I have made my way to Nilan the Malaysian state has the world's biggest minang diaspora and their presence here dates back at least 2 and a half [Music] [Music] centuries so where are we right now CU all I see is uh just greens right so this is suai PBA one of the tributaries are flowing into suau so about 20 minutes from now we're going to reach SU M which is the Waterway for Raja Mala and hisab in tach to First arrive in 1773 thean is really the hter land of the M [Music] alate have been wandering mainly for trade so when Mala was established they remain doing that and they marry into local women the malaka sultanate was founded around the year 1400 by people fleeing from timas or Singapore it became the premier Trade Center on the Straits of Mala and a lot of important developments occurred during that period connections with China through the Ming Maritime voyages increased interaction with India and China and it became a a very very important trade state so P you mentioned before that the minao people went through this River to get to n Milan on their Ral journey and from what I know they bring this with them randang so I've talked to the locals and they've prepared for us this delicious rund down from which is the rangala for King PR meat this has been a freshwater kingr area they would have you experimented with it and came up with this this very delicious uh preparation mhm so it's a creative way of assimilating yes what they already have using foreign recipe at the time to suit the local produce andal taste as well yeah taste as well let's have a [Music] bite I can't believe I'm eating randang in the middle of this River I'm becoming like a true minang person back in the day [Music] days oh my God look at this these large ones are very [Music] good so where are we right now but we're somewhere in room uh-huh I would say this waterways is full of History I reckon some might have gone up River and you know uh found a place to settle right so when they arve in Rau the Gan people were kind enough to let them set up which is so you were saying that the people here gave some of their land to the Min people so who are those people so they were the earlier settlers uh the Malay and the aboriginals it's raining now I don't know how the babo people did it back in the days with no motorboat and maybe sometimes without a roof on top of their head must have been really really tough for [Music] them I've lost all sense of time it feels like I've been on this boat forever [Music] one of the good things that the Nara natives have adopted and assimilated from the minang is of course randang hello aie here you are I've been waiting for you thank you so much welcome welcome you thank you thank you Auntie ay is keeping that culinary Heritage alive she been serving her fiery brand of runda at her Cafe for nearly 20 years actually this is where I operate from she counts Gordon Ramsey as one of her customers and she is a member of the bidanda clan so the bidanda people are the original people of Nan and then Min people came from West Sumatra yes that history is long this Indonesian when they assimilate themselves they marry the local girls right and then they intermar children will be B and then after that all the culture we follow suit and but according to our our way our culture our food almost the same but it's not the same so we our randang that makes a different from other people's randang is the chili P mhm so uh Auntie why do you use chili party instead of other chilies in the it goes really well with all all our cooking all our houses are surrounded by chili P cuz you have the land you have the space planted right that's what my grandma says you don't plant chili py man that's a bad thing so this must be the beef that we're going to cook it's smoked D so we're going to make randang out of this yes it's my first time making a randang out of smoked meat all right so that's just chili PTY [Music] yeah 100% coconut cream wow it's sweet time to put the duck [Music] inside so let's have a go I'm excited the smell is already very different cuz it's smoke M well how is it it's very Smokey it's sweet but without the added sugar and it's all it's very different than what I've been having which is so I'm curious why do you smoke the duck first long time ago we have no Refrigeration so the only way to preserve food is to smoke them dry them mhm so this method of smoking is it truly a bidanda thing to do no it's a Milan thing to do this state they always OD out when 14in State and they the one who always smoke the food the reason why we Sal like Duck is duck smell is stronger than chicken so the best way to get rid of the smell is to smoke it give it a little bit more depth is this the first time you tried smoke randang yes yes first time cuz for me randang is first of all it's almost always beef and then smoke something else and then on top of it it's made with way so it's a it's like a new dish for me coconut milk and from Nan rang spread to the other states gradually becoming a popular dish not just among M but also another hybrid ethnic [Music] [Music] group this is the malaka river it was once the Beating Heart of the port city that true Traders from all over the ancient world malaka was under Dutch control for more than 180 years and before that it was the Portuguese who colonized malaka in 1511 The Straits of Mala is essentially a river that connects the Indian Ocean with South China Sea and if you control Mala you control a lot of interasian trade but also trade back to Europe now these spices were the equivalent of what oil would be today for the modern economy or even you could say microchips for modern computers if you control the production and distribution of these products you have a tremendous amount of power my quest for the story of rang here cannot be complete without paying a visit to one other hybrid ethnic group it traces its Origins to this very port in the 15th century before the arrival of the Portuguese we are the Chinese cultur rated community and therefore known as Babas Yas our forefathers were actually Chinese immigrant some believe that we were here since the Mala satate era Mala in its founding days had to look for worthy allies and one of these allies came in the form of the Chinese who were also at a point in time um sending the great Naval Expeditions out into sou Asia as well as in Indian Ocean under what was called The chenho Marine time Expeditions when the Ming Fleet came into Malika there was an attempt to actually set up a long-term presence in that City and then know to be able to to operate from there so our fathers came here bringing along with them uh their Chinese belief and religions and uh practices but because they have been living here for many generations and uh mixing around with the local population they begin to adopt and adapt we speak a local language we dress like them we eat like them as the minan Cabo Traders from Nan began trading in Mala they brought along their much love randan as time past the residents of malaka began incorporating it into their diet too this smells amazing I can't wait to try it I would say renang would be a typical festive dish in our home actually we have a meal called to panang or a long table full of dishes that would be basically for happy occasions like birthdays weddings so we normally serve great red colored sort of dish and rang the most important ingredient is the chili that's why sting red so it would be a suitable dish uh to be served during happy occasions so are there any reasons why chickens are used instead of uh beef in prakan Cuisine well the prakan people especially the traditional prakan Buddhism seems to play a very major role in their lives yes for religious reason we do not take beef at home and therefore we use a lot of chicken occasionally pork you can really taste the Chinese influence in this dish mhm especially with theang the star anise that is very present in this Dish and also the chili oil or like the dried chili mhm mixed with the coconut oil from the coconut milk it's like a chili oil they usually get in Chinese restaurants the unique Chinese Malay mix of the bakans seem really familiar to what I've learned of the minang Cabo the banet style of serving minang food is like the to panang then there's randang served on special occasions just like the minang it's also cooked in a similar way but with a different meat in my randan quest so far I have seen the dish adapt to local produce adopt for ingredients and evolve with new cultures through the ages so what could possibly be next in the evolution of Funda the very modern Singapore it's the last stop of my randang adventure a stop first made by minank Cabo folks close to two centuries ago minan Cals arrived in Singapore in the 19th and 20th century when Singapore was under British colonial rule as part of the moranta system they would come here seeking opportunities they would work in businesses they would go to school sometimes they married here and integrated into Singaporean Society there have also been important figures in Singaporean history who are minan cabal such as zubir side who wrote the national anthem of Singapore also the first president of Singapore was of minan cabal or origin and so they have a lot of influence outside of minab I've discovered that rang brought from West Sumatra was actually adopted and adapted by other cultures to suit their unique needs I want to find out if the ageold process and recipes has a place among Next Generation chefs like me this is one of the new newest restaurants to join the fine dining scene in Singapore I would imagine tradition isn't on the menu there you hello Chef oh hello a how are you how are you I'm good we're doing contemporary sou Asian Cuisine mhm and we're focusing on preserving ancient techniques as you can see we have p m b right and also fermentation we extract the Umami from the proteins and we use that to season our dishes all right so that's the ancient part what about the Contemporary we rely on precise cooker what we have here s so the meat are cooked on the dot and it speeds up our cooking process as well and it helps with the um mouth feel and texture as you dying I learned this recipe from observing my late grandmother when she does a rendang m Sur rendang is very important to us as a family it's a symbol of gathering especially for haraya and it's a communal effort so everybody plays their part so it's it's a bonding period as well oh beautiful there you go so we're going to pound all these beautiful aromatics can I do the pounding yes certainly yeah I'll pull it out as I pounded away at the ingredients I realized that we were missing something in a process I'm not seeing any spices that is going to be grinded here so what's the deal I want to showcase how the only Camp forages using the ingredients surrounding the compound of the house as you can see we have turmeric lemongrass galangal so these are very accessible this is wagu It's been brine overnight with rang spices it's been smoked yesterday in the J and we had already cooked using the um s all right I'm going to give you a slice of this this beautiful meat mhm no wow this is wagu uh TR tip rme smok and definitely not common in the camp true get our hand dirty after this but amidst the process of reinvention were some familiar sites right the aromatics that we pounded so right now this stage is what we would have called a goui as you can see is watery we're going to add in cavali all right we have reached the C Stak and once we pass that stage it becomes R down see the the beautiful [Music] oil give it a try [Music] excited so refreshing refreshing that's the one word that I would not expect coming from a Randa a refreshing R it's very herbaceous it's smokey but very subtle it's complex very Umami also very citrusy the lemongrass the galangal the cake of chili flavor of the coconut this really makes up southeast Asia for me it's like a celebration of Southeast Asia one day of [Music] PL what I've learned through this amazing and delicious journey of the renang universe is that each type of rang is a reflection of a journey of Discovery kind of like what I've been on and the need to adapt especially when it comes [Music] to [Music] ch

Channel: CNA Insider

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Length: 47min 1sec (2821 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 15 2024