We Tried Singapore's Legendary Slow-Cooked Beef

[item taps]

[food bubbles]

[slurps] Oh, yummy.

Welcome to North Bridge Road in Singapore.

We are here outside a century-old restaurant, Sabar Menanti,

that specializes in an Indonesian-style

of eating called Nasi Padang.

They're also really well known

for one delicious dish, beef rendang.

Beef rendang is a delicious stewed beef dish.

And this beef rendang only gets cooked once every two

to three days.

Boss is about to start a new batch. Let's go see it.

Hello, boss. Hi.

[Lucas] The wok's getting hot.

[Iszahar] We are just warming it up.

[milk sizzles] Oh, coconut milk.

Interesting. Beef rendang in short refers to frying.

In beef rendang, the first step is the boiling

and the stewing.

That is not to say that it doesn't end up frying.

And the question is, where does the fat

come from for that frying?

It's all inside of the coconut milk.

The thing with fresh coconut milk

is it doesn't have emulsifiers,

which means that it can split.

Splitting is a good thing because fat

and water will extract different flavor compounds

out of the spices and the meat that it's cooked with.

Now in come the aromatics.

Chef's putting in the red onions,

ground almost to a paste.

It doesn't have to caramelize now.

It'll caramelize a little bit later.

Next is two gigantic scoops of garlic,

also fresh ground into a paste.

[utensils tap] [people chatter]

Here you go, lemongrass.

[ladle knocks]

Little bit of galangal in the lemongrass and then-

Ginger. Gorgeous.

That's a very strong base.

If you were to take a scoop out of this right now,

it would be disgusting.

[ladle knocks] [Iszahar laughs]

We have been doing this for like 80 years.

[chuckles] Yeah. So [laughs]-

Yeah. I don't have to change

my mom's way of cooking.

That's right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. [Iszahar laughs]

Not while she's still sitting outside

watching you do it, you know?

So these are dried chilies that have been rehydrated

and then ground into a paste.

So this dried chili powder, as opposed to the chili paste,

is a lot more floral.

Now the rest of the whole spices, kasha,

some Asian cinnamon, green cardamom,

all of these whole spices are going to

leech out their flavor a little bit more slowly,

cloves for a little bit of that warming spice,

and star anise for that signature licorice type of thing.

It's a very generous amount of spices.

You know what the craziest thing about seasoning rendang is?

This amount of liquid is basically going to disappear

by the end of the cooking process,

which means that the moisture will go away,

but the salt and the seasoning will stay.

You kind of have to predict how it's going to taste like

a couple hours from now when you start

the seasoning process this early,

but you can't just season at the end.

If you season at the end,

it's not going to be flavorful enough.

Come here. [people chatter]

[metal clangs] Look at this.

[people chatter] [container taps]

See how it says pepper? It's not pepper.

It's mom's secret seasoning that she makes at home.

I can smell clove and I think I can smell nutmeg,

but there are a bunch of other things I cannot identify.

[person chatters] [utensil taps]

[Lucas sighs]

Her son doesn't know the recipe.

The employees don't know the recipe.

This is a third-generation century-old restaurant,

but there's some things that

are still kept under lock and key.

Here comes the beef.

This cut of beef is the rump,

which is the top part of the hind leg.

It's a very lean cut of beef

with a little bit of tendon on the outside.

A leaner cut is actually going

to be quite flavorful in terms of the meat

if you treat it correctly.

Beef rendang comes from a tradition of preserving the meat

and fat in meat gets in the way

of that preservation process.

What do you think is the secret to a perfect rendang?

For us, I think it's making the rendang

the old authentic way.

Uh-huh. The old-school way.

Constant stirring.

After we just slow cook, it's more gas,

you know? Yes.

Spend, but then the meat will be-

Makes it tender. Tender and perfect. Yeah.

We have to let it

cook for a while. Do its thing.

Let the meat shrink inside then we can start

to stir it. Start moving it.

In Western cooking, the first step to a braise

or a stew is oftentimes to brown the aromatics

and to brown that meat, to generate that Maillard reaction

and that caramelization that's going

to provide the depth of flavor for the stew.

In beef rendang, the opposite is what happens.

It's a braise or a boil or a stew first

before you do that frying to achieve that caramelization.

Caramelization is when sugar turns into caramel

and you develop all these wonderful deep brown flavors.

Second is the Maillard reaction,

which is when proteins interact with sugar at temperature

and produce additional flavor compounds.

In beef rendang, the danger obviously is caramelization

and these Maillard reaction will happen at temperatures

that get close to burning.

If you are not stirring

and you're not paying attention,

the beef rendang can easily burn,

which is again why this dish is such a labor

of attention and a labor of love.

[rendang bubbles]

Progress report.

Middle of lunch rush, heating up more things,

but the rendang has been cooking

for about two and a half hours

and it looks significantly darker in color.

The beef has started to contract a little bit

of caramelization happening on the outside.

With bubbling, bubbling, bubbling, bubbling.

All of the spices have warmed up.

They're soaking in that liquid,

building a lot of layers of flavor.

Can we go outside?

Take a look at what Nasi Padang

is all about? Yes. Let's go.

[people chatter]

[Lucas] Ah, look at this. Look at the colors.

Look at the textures.

[Iszahar] When you order Nasi Padang,

you have to try a little bit of every dish.

Nasi Padang, which is from Sumatra.

If you are from the highlands,

then you have a bit more of meat.

Right. If you are in the coastal,

then you have a bit more of seafood.

And you have both here?

We have both here. Yeah. Yeah.

So when you go to Padang, it is not called Nasi Padang,

it's just called food. Yeah.

[person yells] [Iszahar laughs]

[laughs] Rice. Mixed rice. Yeah right. Yeah.

The essential of Nasi Padang

is of course the beef rendang.

Yes. The Ayam Kalio,

which is chicken. Which is chicken.

[Iszahar] This is the grilled chicken, which we grill it

over charcoal. Yes.

Mackerel. This is one of our most popular dishes.

Oh yeah. The sambal sotong.

That looks so good. The pucuk ubi,

which is tapioca leaf.

[Lucas] We might take it for granted that,

oh, Nasi Padan always has all these colors

and all this variation that, oh,

they're just the way that it is.

Yeah. You guys start cooking

five or six in the morning for this stuff.

No, we start at four.

The process of cooking, it's very tedious for Nasi Padang.

Very flavorful.

Some people do not understand the amount of effort-

Right. Yeah. And time that we put into

prepare such dishes for them. Yeah.

[food bubbles]

Sabar Menanti is one of the oldest restaurants

that we have visited here in Singapore.

They started it off as a road stall

in a classic Nasi Padang street.

Over time, it's moved, switched hands

between the different generations,

but stayed within the same family.

Now, Isz is running it as a third-generation owner

in conjunction with his mom and his uncle,

the second-generation owners

who are still here every single day

watching the beef rendang.

Come closer and take a look.

This is what I mean by the total separation.

You can see the particulates of the coconut milk come out,

and you can see that the oil has totally separated out.

The oil is going to be extracting different polyphenols,

different flavor compounds that when it is emulsified,

it will not be able to do.

This is when that depth of flavor is being built.

When you see the side of the wok,

this is the sign of the caramelization,

but also a sign that this could easily burn,

which is why at this stage,

it's pretty critical to keep it

moving and moving and moving.

Chef is also adding a little bit of the last

sort of aromatics, in this case, lime leaf.

Some of the more volatile ones

that you don't want cooking throughout the entire

three-to-four-hour process.

Just at the end, let it cool down, settle it overnight

so it can absorb all those flavors overnight

and it'll be even more delicious tomorrow.

[people chatter]

Here at Sabar Menanti, when you get here,

you order at the counter so you get to see everything,

sit down, pay with mom at the front.

Beef rendang, please. Beef rendang.

The beef also continues to simmer

on the steam table over time,

so it develops a little bit more flavor.

I'm looking forward to it.

Your regulars also told me

to order one of the squid sambal,

and the greens, please.

The tapioca leaves. The mackerel, please.

[Server] Boss, what else, boss?

I think that's it. That's it.

And a little bit of rice, please.

Oh, look at the different consistencies of the gravies.

The wet ones, the in-between ones, the colors.

Oh, it looks good. We got our food.

We're looking at, first and foremost, beef rendang.

You oftentimes know beef rendang's going to be good

when you see it.

The first thing is the color. It's dark, dark, dark brown.

It's fully reduced, and second thing is a split of the oil.

That looks outstanding. Textbook.

[people chatter] A little bit of sambal

sotong, tapioca leaves, braised.

Mackerel, which is a favorite of a lot of the regulars.

Two types of sambal, cooked chilies, one red, one green.

Generous amount of oil to carry that capsaicin

and that heat, and of course, rice on the side.

It's a small portion,

but it's a really quite an intense flavor, I imagine.

[people chatter]

[Lucas slurps]

Oh, yummy.

The delight in this

is that the tenderness doesn't come

from melt-in-your-mouth fat.

Rather, it comes from low and slow cooking.

So as the beef comes apart, it's stringy.

[people chatter] [utensils scrape]

That is very yummy.

Whenever you eat these heavily-spiced dishes,

there's the first taste,

and then you get a sense of the texture,

and then the spices build over time, little by little.

First, the warming spice, you know, the cloves

and the cardamoms in question, the cinnamons,

and then some of those floral notes begin to hit you,

but then also the capsaicin, the spice begins to build

from the chili peppers.

This is caramelized onions paste

with lemongrass, ginger and galangal.

And all of that sweetness is inherent

in the vegetable itself,

but can only be accessed after it's been cooked

and been reduced properly to build that layer of flavor.

If you took this off the stove too quickly,

it would not have these echoes of flavor.

You see that? That stringiness is not a bad thing.

Of course, this would be gooey if you cooked it

with beef belly or short rib,

but with this cut, the traditional way,

it is still so delicious.

Tapioca leaves to quell a little bit of that heat.

[people chatter]

Mm. So garlicky, so punchy.

Actually so tasty.

It's like braised collard greens. Hint of coconut.

If you need a little bit more spice,

a little bit of sambal, the green one, and the red one.

Red peppers tend to be riper fruits,

and so they will give a little bit more sweetness,

whereas the green will give you a little bit more of

that herbacious vegetal thing.

[people chatter] [utensils tap]

[lips smack] Not aggressive at all,

but really nice compliment to everything.

Have a little bit of this. Sambal sotong.

I like it this way.

I've had this dish quite a few times,

and oftentimes it can come out almost rendangi,

deep, very, very dry,

but the sambal here is so fresh.

[people chatter]

Ooh-aah.

[item knocks]

I love that. Wait a second. Wait a second.

Wait a second. [people chattering continues]

[item thuds]

It's got a little bit of that coconut oil thing going,

but the first taste is the rainbow

of fresh pepper nightshade flavor profile.

This is almost like a romesco,

but it has all this wonderful light fruit sweetness.

[metal clangs] Some onions.

Lemongrass probably. [people chattering continues]

It's almost outshining the rendang. Oh my God.

Very, very, very good. [steel scrapes]

So here's a charcoal-grilled mackerel.

Very deep, deep, deep, deep flavor.

[teeth scrape]

Yummy. Really intense flavor.

Almost gamey. A fish could be gamey.

I mean, it's a ocean fish, big bloodline.

This seems very much a local taste.

These are one of my favorite bites I've had

in Southeast Asia, for sure.

This is not the first time I've had Nasi Padang,

but this is the first time I've had Nasi Padang

where I've seen such clarity of the chef's vision

and almost their philosophy.

Their approach to every single dish,

it seems to absorb all the influences

that Singapore is known for.

I know that Indonesians coming from Indonesia to Singapore

to eat Nasi Padang,

and they feel that sense of authenticity.

But for me as a foreigner, as a tourist, basically,

I still see that clarity

and that they approach every single dish

with different intentions, with their own recipes

and their own flavor profiles.

The techniques are incredible.

We've just started the adventure

of understanding everything on that buffet line.

You can't come to Singapore without trying Nasi Padang,

especially because it is such a great way

to start to understand a lot of the Indonesian influences

through Malay cooking that ended up here in Singapore.

Sabar Menanti is an incredible example.

100 years' worth of that silent philosophy of cooking.

[people chattering continues] [utensils knock]