Daging Masak Asam / Beef with Tamarind - (MFF Kedah Perlis)

While I'm scratching my head what to cook for Kedah / Perlis month, Wendy found this recipe for me. I kinda like it!

Daging Masak Asam, literally beef cooked with tamarind juice. This is Perlis dish. I never had it before. But I kinda adore the unique taste! This dish is easy and stress free too.

I'm fussy over what to cook sometimes. Not that I'm a fussy eater, but I have a fussy big kid to feed. Whenever I wanted to cook a new dish, I will needa make sure that he eat. For this, he's ok. He loves this stewed dish.



Here, are the main ingredients...

Ingredients
(Source : Happy Cooking Time, with slight modification)

• 380g Lean Beef, cut into 1 cm thick
• 280g Beef Muscle, cut into 1cm thick (Optional)
• 3 medium Potatoes
• ½ cup Tamarind Juice (40g Tamarind Paste + 180ml Water)
• 1 tsp Tumeric Powder
• 2 tbsp Sugar
• 2 tsp Salt
• 400 to 600ml cups Water (depends on individual)
• 2 Star Anise
• 3 Cloves 

Spices (to grind together)

• 2 inch Ginger (About 20g)
• 4 cloves Garlic
• 5 Shallots
• 1 Onion

I love beef muscle when it comes to slow braising. So, I just added them in. If you don't like it, just use all lean beef.

Method 

1. Scoop Tamarind paste into the water. With both hands, rub the tamarind pulp, strain the water and discard the seed. Keep the juice. 
2. Grind all spices together into a paste.
3. Cut meat into 1 cm thick and cut potatoes into big chunk.
4. In a big wok, heat up oil, fry spice paste, star anise and cloves till fragrant.
5. Add in the meat, sugar and tamarind juice. Give it a stir.
6. Add water, bring to a boil, and then add salt to taste. 
7. Let it braise under very low heat until the meat are tender. It took me about 45mins, because I have muscle meat here. If you are cutting the meat into smaller piece, definitely the cooking time will be shorter.  
8. When the meat is almost soft, like 10mins before it is ready, add in potatoes, stir and let it slowly cook till the potatoes turned soft. 

See how I cut lean meat into pieces...

And I cut muscle into pieces...

I've added additional spices in there. Star anise and cloves, which the original recipe doesn't ask for it. I'm glad that I did it. It enhance the flavour of the dish in overall.

Different part of beef has different tenderness level. So, braising time may vary. So, please always eyeball it yourself. You can't just follow mine blindly. Maybe your's require shorter or longer time than mine.

Will I repeat this dish again? I think yes. I will. It's quite delicious! Goes very well with rice! :)

I really have to thank MFF (Malaysian Food Fest). If not for MFF event, I don't think I will be that adventurous to try different dishes from different states in Malaysia. I will keep it up!  :)

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I am submitting this to MFF Kedah Perlis Month hosted by WendyinKK of Table for two...or more.