Jackfruit Rendang with sticky rice, brown butter fried corn and tangy greens

There’s an art to naming dishes, and I haven’t fully figured it out yet. When I first thought through what I wanted to make this week I was playing around with something like a Rendang sushi bowl, but that gave me goosebumps in all the wrong places. So we pivot and call it sticky rice, which might throw the fusion police off our scent, but that’s not where the challenge ends is it?

How many ingredients in a dish should be listed in its name? E.g. I opted for:
“tangy greens” instead of
"lime pickled cucumber, scallions and cilantro" because that just seemed too long?
All the while "brown butter fried corn" did make the full cut. I mean, sure, butter will always get special treatment over anything green, no surprises there, but naming a dish is hard! And I love naming things! Even my fucking foodprocessor has a name!

(just cause I know you wanna know: it’s Darryl)

I'm sure some of you have dipped their toe in the “is a hotdog a sandwich” debate, and I'm delighted to inform you that there seems to be some light at the end of that tunnel. If you have a few minutes to spare I highly recommend going down the rabbit hole of The Cube Rule. This rule defines pizza as toast, wraps as sushi and hotdogs as tacos. Strong recommend.

Ingredients #

Ingredients for 2 (ish, more like 3):

• 3 shallots
• 4 garlic cloves
• 5cm piece of ginger
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 2 teaspoons ground coriander
• 2 teaspoons turmeric
• 75gr cashews or cashew butter
• 2 tablespoons sambal oelek (or other chili paste)
• Salt
• Vegetable oil
• 400ml coconut milk
• 2 stalks lemongrass
• 300gr young jackfruit (you can find this canned or frozen at most Asian supermarkets, or if you don’t wanna go through that trouble feel free to sub for something like mushrooms or even chicken)
• 200gr sushi rice
• 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
• 1 lime
• ½ cucumber
• Scallions
• Coriander
• 20gr butter
• 150gr corn

Method #

1. In the bowl of a food processor add the peeled shallots, garlic and ginger together with all of the spices, sambal and cashews. Blend it into a fine paste, and season with a tablespoon of salt.

2. Heat up a skillet with a fitting lid over medium high heat with some vegetable oil in it. Add the rendang paste to the skillet and fry until very fragrant, about 5 minutes. Once your paste smells amaze-ballz, roughly chop the jackfruit and add it to the skillet. Fry everything together for a few minutes before adding the coconut milk and a little water if you feel like it’s sticking to the pan a lot.

3. Bend the lemongrass stalks a little and add them to the pan. Put a lid over the pan and turn the heat down to low. You’ll want to simmer everything low and slow for about 45 minutes, which yes seems like a long time - but hey now you have time to prep the rest of the food! Keep a sneaky eye on your rendang though to make sure it doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pan.

4. Cut your cucumber in small cubes and add them to a little bowl together with the juice of half a lime and some salt. Put aside for now. Chop 2 scallion stalks and a bunch of cilantro and put aside too.

5. In a fine mesh strainer rinse the sushi rice under cold water until the water runs through clearly. Add the rice to a small pot with a fitting lid together with about 220ml water.

6. Bring to a boil, then turn the heat down and simmer for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes turn the heat off and let the rice steam for an additional 15 minutes with the lid on the pot. Once the rice is done, stir a tablespoon of rice vinegar through it and taste for seasoning.

7. In the meantime, in a small non stick skillet add the butter over medium high heat, and swirl it around until it turns a golden brown color and starts smelling un-effin-real. Add the corn to the skillet with some salt and fry on high heat until you get some nice browning on it.

8. Mangiare! Add the sticky sushi rice to a plate together with the rendang and top with your buttery crispy corn, tangy cucumber, scallions and some cilantro. If you have anything else you want to add on top, like crispy fried onions, godspeed!

If you’re not familiar with Indonesian food, this would be a great place to start exploring. It takes a little time, but most of that is hands-off waiting for things to get more and more delicious. Your house will start smelling very tasty, very quickly so if you’re a human being and get violently impatient while waiting for your food to finish cooking, prep a snack.