This one is especially for Kathya. An Indonesian dish, beef long-cooked in coconut milk with spices, shown above, hot out of the pan and still steaming - hence the slight fuzziness. This one takes a long time to cook - you have to wait for the coconut milk to reduce. Sue was starting to get impatient, but she once she tasted it she agreed it was worth the wait. Recipe based on one from "Indonesian Regional Food and Cookery" by Sri Owen. 800g beef (brisket, topside or silverside) 1 onion 3 cloves garlic 3/4 inch piece of root ginger, peeled 1/2 tsp turmeric 4 red chillis 1 tsp chopped galangal 1.2 litres coconut millk (that's 3 x 400ml tins) 1 bay leaf 1 stalk lemon grass 1 tsp salt Peel and chop onion. chop garlic, ginger and chillis. Place in blender with 6 tbsp coconut milk and blend until smooth paste. Chop beef into 3/4 inch cubes. Pour remaining coconut milk into wok or large pan and add paste. Add remaining ingredient including beef - the coconut milk should comfortably cover the beef. Bring to a gentle simmer and leave bubbling gently for 2 hours, stirring occasionally. The sauce should start to thicken and eventually separates into oil and a dryish paste that coats the beef. You'll need to stir much more often towards the end. Basically the beef starts off by boiling in the coconut milk and ends up frying in the coconut oil. Once you've reached the oily stage, keep stirring and frying for another fifteen minutes or so. The beef should be quite dark by now. Serve hot, with plain rice.

So, I put this in brine and a mix of herbs and garlic almost two weeks ago. It should be ready for cooking on Saturday / Sunday. All I need are some amazing bagels to go with it. If only I knew a decent bakers (I haven't time to make bagels this weekend, or go to brick Lane). My uber butcher said to try silverside instead of brisket...he'd better be right.