TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The world best beefy dish Rendang recently became a viral topic in social media following a jury in MasterChef UK criticized the dish presented by a Malaysian contestant for not being crispy and inedible.
Many netizens responded to the negative comment conveyed by chef John Torode who was deemed as not acknowledged to the popular dish from Minangkabau, Indonesia. Meanwhile, a culinary expert from Gadjah Mada University Murdijati Gardjito outlined wide varieties of Rendang.
“From the material only, there are 19 kinds of rendang,” said Murdijati when contacted on Thursday afternoon, April 5. Some of those kinds are made from beef, chicken, fish, eggs, prawn, squid. While from beef, it is divided into lungs, spleen, liver, and tripe.
In addition, there is also vegetable rendang which has five types. “All of it (rendang) made from plants and vegetables,” he stated. One of popular vegetable rendang is rendang cubadak which made from unripe jackfruit or locally known as nangka muda. Rendang Cubadak is common in Indonesian restaurant as a daily dish.
Read: Southeast Asians Unite as Beef over Chicken Rendang Rages On
Based on its purpose, rendang is divided into two types namely daily rendang and rendang for a special occasion. Murdijati stated rendang used for a ritual and daily consume is different.
“Rendang for a daily meal uses one kilogram of meat that is cut into 20 pieces. While for the ritual or ceremony, it serves a whole meat.” Moreover, rendang for ritual must be made from beef.
According to Murdijati, a ritual rendang is not for public consumption; only for display. It is also as a symbol of a social status, the biggest the meat of rendang, the higher its owner’s social class in the society.
Furthermore, there are three stages of cooking rendang, or locally known merandang. The first is rendang with the soup which is called gulai. If the process keeps going on and the soup reduced, it is called kalio. “But it (kalio) still has the liquid,” Murdijati explained. Kalio rendang is lasted for about three days, while gulai only lasted a day.
In the third stage of merandang, rendang has no liquid and dried. “There are some crust and the dried liquid look like the spices,” he said. In this stage, rendang can last for a week.
All of those kinds of rendang is originated from Minangkabau. “Some of them from Bukittinggi, Payakumbuh. It all varies, but still from Minangkabau,” Murdijati asserted, reasoning that merandang is a traditional cooking of Malay-descent people.
FRANCISCA CHRISTY ROSANA
