Rendang (BRW)

• 2 hot dried red chiles [I got a big ass bag of chile de arbol. Plus I used 5 of them.  If Bittman says he's being conservative, I thought I might as well double that plus one.  I could've used more.]
• 3 garlic cloves, peeled
• 3 shallots, peeled
• One 1-inch piece fresh ginger or galangal, peeled and roughly chopped [I'm not fancy enough to have galangal lying around]
• 1 teaspoon ground turmeric [I did see fresh turmeric at Market Basket last weekend and I'm intrigued especially since Modernist Cuisine at Home give a good metric to sub for the powdered stuff.  Alas, not this time around.]
• 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
• 1 teaspoon coriander seeds
• 2 tablespoons tamarind paste, or the juice and zest of 2 limes [I'm also sadly not fancy enough for tamarind paste either]
• 2 tablespoons corn, grapeseed, or other neutral oil
• 1 pound boneless beef, preferably chuck, cut into 1-inch cubes
• 1 cup coconut milk, homemade [right...] or canned
• Salt to taste

Process the first 8 ingredients until everything is minced.  I guess if you were adding tamarind paste, you'd hold off until everything else was processed.

Mise en place.

Heat oil over medium-high heat.  Add spice paste and cook until fragrant.

Add beef and cook until browned and covered with the sauce.  However,  I'll own up to probably not getting much browning action going on.

Pour in coconut milk, cover, and simmer until the sauce dries out, about 1 hour.

The sauce really wasn't all the dry by the time I stopped.  I don't know if I stopped because I was hungry or merely because I was running out of time.
I've heard people rave about rendang on Top Chef, but I didn't find this dish to be all that distinctive from any old curry.  Obviously, I will have to find a way more complex, bitching recipe for this someday.

Swiss chard, chickpea, and tamarind stew (Plenty)

• 4 tbsp seedless tamarind pulp [Too lazy to seek this out in some crazy market.  Super 88 if they have any is too much of a trek.]
• 1 lb Swiss chard (stalks and leaves), cut into 3/8-inch slices
• 1 1/2 tsp coriander seeds
• 1 medium onion, thinly sliced
• 2 tsp caraway seeds
• 1 1/2 tbsp olive oil, plus extra to finish
• 1 tsp tomato paste
• one 14-oz can chopped plum tomatoes, with their juices
• 1 1/2 cup water
• 1 1/2 tbsp sugar
• 2 1/2 cups freshly cooked chickpeas (or a 14-oz can, drained)
• salt and black pepper
• juice of 1 lemon
• 1 cup Greek yogurt (optional) [Nope]
• generous handful cilatro leaves
• 1 3/4 cups short-grain rice
• 1 1/2 tbsp butter
• 3 cups water

Toasting the coriander seeds.  I'm sure I could've easily just whizzed them in the coffee grinder, but I decided to do what Ottolenghi said and broke out the mortar and pestle.

Mise en place.

Blanching the chard in salted water.

There were some steps in here, but it seems like I figured to only photograph very few of them.  Basically this is a bowl with practically everything in it except for the cilantro and lemon and...

Rice pilaf.  Which strikes me as far more foolproof a way of cooking rice on a stovetop than normal rice.  Not like I do that since I have a rice cooker.

Very good dish.  I only added the juice of half of a lemon since I thought the dish was quite sour enough as is.  I guess I didn't have cilantro this time around.

This is also a weird culinary mash-up since I'm pretty sure they don't use tamarind in the middle east.