Good afternoon, dear friends, 
A few years ago before we moved to this present address, we were staying next door to an elderly Malay couple who were in their 70’s. We became good friends and I had learned to cook many traditional Malay kampung (village) recipes from this Makcik (Malay word for “aunty”).
Below is the unique recipe from her, and I have cooked this a few times and it will blow your socks off because it is so delicious. I find that these days it is difficult to find such good rendang. 
Ingredients :-
10 shallots
4 cloves garlic
2 stalks lemon grass/serai, smashed for flavour
1 cm ginger
1/2 tsp salt or to taste
sugar to taste
lots of pepper
1 tsp chili paste or 3 fresh chilies
1/2 tsp turmeric
500g chicken, chopped (or mutton, beef, cubed)
1 cup coconut milk
2 kaffir lime leaves
1 turmeric leaf
1/4 cup oil
1/2 cup pounded kerisik (dry roasted dessicated coconut that is golden brown and very fragrant)
Method :-
1) Blend onion, garlic, ginger, salt, turmeric and chili paste until smooth.
2) Heat oil in wok and add blended mixture. Stir fry for 5 minutes or until paste separates from the oil.
3) Add chicken and stir fry for 5 minutes.
4) Add kaffir lime leaves and turmeric leaf and coconut milk and allow to simmer for about 45 minutes or until meat is tender, adding a bit more coconut milk as necessary to keep sauce from drying and burning.
5) Add the coconut kerisik when the meat is almost tender, like 10 minutes before finish.
You have to keep stirring frequently to avoid burning. When the meat is tender and the sauce is almost dry, remove from heat. Serve with any type of rice or bread.
Note – This portion of the recipe that I have written here is very small. For my family’s size, I will cook 4 times the amount of this recipe and keep the rendang in the fridge for a few days…..warming up in small quantities for eating.
Serve this with Nasi Lemak (Coconut Rice) or with plain white rice, or eat with bread! Then wash the meal down with a cup of iced lemon tea! Yummy!!
Bon Appetite!
choesf
yen1908 said,
October 5, 2007 @ 10:24 pm
Hi choesf
Wow, another delicious looking recipe! Where can I buy kerisik? Only from the Malay stalls? None at my area, so how? Make it myself?
Hey, I would like to try this out soon! Thanks for sharing your recipe!
happyhomemaker88 said,
October 6, 2007 @ 2:27 am
Good evening to you, yen
Here in KL, we can buy ready made kerisik from those stalls (Malay and Chinese) that sell grated coconut and santan/milk. But I like to make my own kerisk cos then it’s fresher.
For making kerisik, I will buy RM1 of good quality grated coconut. Then dry roast it over medium fire in a wok or non-stick pan. Stirring frequently, until golden. Cool down and then pound with a pestle and mortar or grind in a food processor. But the pounding is better as it will release the oils. It is a lot of work…..you can buy kerisik.
Actually my recipe uses those ground wet spices that we can buy from the Indian curry spice stalls – I use RM2 worth in place of the meat curry powder…..but I adjusted this recipe for those overseas who can’t buy the wet curry spices.
Bon Appetit,
choesf
Tina said,
November 3, 2007 @ 11:14 am
Hi Choesf,
Your recipe is really delicious & the fragrance dashes to my neighbour’s houses.
Rendang is cooked with coconut juice so i was wondering what is the maximum days we can store in the freezer?
As coconut is easy to ”basi” (spoil).
Thanks for the wonderful recipe.
Cheers,
Tina
happyhomemaker88 said,
November 3, 2007 @ 11:56 am
Hello there and welcome, Tina,
I am very happy to receive good feedback from you on this dish. Hehe…I always enjoy the yummy smell of food coming from my neighbours, and therefore, I bet they love your Rendang aroma, too.
Well, once you have cooked the kerisik and the santan/coconut milk for quite a long time like in this recipe, it doesn’t spoil as easily as the other coconut dishes. So, the rendang dish can actually keep quite well, up to a week in the refrigerator/chiller. What I did was to take out the portion I want to serve for one meal and heat that up on the stove or microwave oven.
I’m not sure how long that this can be kept in the freezer as I have not tried doing that, my rendang gets finished in 2 days!
But in my personal opinion, if you cool down the rendang before freezing it in airtight containers, it should keep up to one month. 
Have a great weekend, Tina!
Much peace and joy,
choesf
Tina said,
November 3, 2007 @ 1:21 pm
Hi Choesf,
Thanks for the fast reply & your good advise.
If you do have any new recipes please do alert me okay? =P
Till then take care & u too have a great weekend ahead!
cheers,
Tina
happyhomemaker88 said,
November 3, 2007 @ 1:34 pm
You are very welcome, Tina.
Okay, I will let you know whenever I have posted new recipes….hehe, I just posted a few recipes recently and the latest was posted a few minutes ago for my Special Garlic Bread. Check out the recent posts on the sidebar at the right of this page. 
Cheers!
choesf
everlyn said,
February 23, 2009 @ 3:00 pm
Hi Choesf,
You given a gr8 recipe and found easy to make but unfourtunately u forget to tell us addng salt and sugar.:)
happyhomemaker88 said,
February 23, 2009 @ 4:14 pm
Hi there and welcome, dear everlyn
Thank you for pointing that out. Actually, I have the salt and sugar in my ingredients list but I forgot to mention them in the cooking method. Season the rendang to taste at the end of cooking.
With peace and joy,
choesf
Quinn said,
September 20, 2009 @ 10:20 am
When do you add the serai?
Thanks!
happyhomemaker88 said,
September 20, 2009 @ 11:15 am
Hi there, dear Quinn
I missed out the serai instructions
– just add it when frying the pounded ingredients.
For my Hari Raya Festival 2009 brunch, I had followed a different recipe and the rendang was the best I ever cooked – I will be writing about it soon!
With best wishes,
choesf
Quinn said,
September 20, 2009 @ 12:00 pm
Thanks, hopefully you can post that up soon for people like me who have to celebrate Raya in Australia
happyhomemaker88 said,
September 21, 2009 @ 7:49 pm
You are most welcome, dear Quinn! I will post the rendang recipe asap.
With best wishes,
choesf
KM said,
September 22, 2009 @ 4:54 pm
Just to let you know that I used your recipe to make chicken rendang on Saturday and it was DELICIOUS
Thank you so much. Your recipe however doesn’t mention instruction to put lemon grass so I almost forgot to put it in but hardly a big deal. I accidentaly put too much turmeric and had to call my mom at 12am Msian time to ask her how to rescue it as it tasted very bitter (she told me to put more coconut cream and some sugar).
I will definitely use your recipe again!
Thanks so much again…
xx
happyhomemaker88 said,
September 23, 2009 @ 2:23 pm
Hi there and welcome, dear KM
Thank you for trying out this recipe. I’m glad you like the taste.
I will go back and edit this recipe to reflect the lemon grass instructions.
You mom sure had a good tip on how to remedy the excess turmeric. 
I used another Rendang recipe for this Hari Raya (2009) and my family all agreed that this was the best rendang tasted that I have ever cooked (I made both Chicken and Beef Rendang). I will post this recipe later today.
Do have a lovely week ahead!
With best wishes,
choesf
BB said,
September 30, 2009 @ 3:29 pm
i love spicy dishes, been go through yr rendang chicken, will try it, please send me more recipe. By the way, do u have chinese wording recipe. Thanks
happyhomemaker88 said,
October 1, 2009 @ 9:17 am
Hi there and welcome, dear BB
I’m sorry I don’t know how to write or read Chinese…
However, you can use Google Translate. I have tried another Rendang Recipe last month and it was the best I have ever cooked… READ HERE. I also have some curry recipes….if you type in the word “curry” in the Search box at the top right hand corner of this page, you will find some recipes there. 
Happy cooking!
With best wishes,
choesf