Sego Gandul/Nasi Gandul

Sego Gandul or Nasi Gandul, literally means hanging rice...but do not expect that you will find the way it means by words. It is a traditional meal from Pati, Central Java. Somebody told me that because it is served with a piece of banana leaf lining the plate, it does not touch the plate, that's why they call it "Gandul", whereas "sego/nasi" means rice.
I was born in Pati, but I confess I had never made this meal before until the other day when I saw Titi and Ayin made and posted it on their blogs.
A year ago, my sister sent me the recipe through email and last week I went through my old inbox to find that particular message with the recipe in it, and I was happy to find it was still there. My sis got the recipe from a lady that lives in Pati, so I trust it is a genuine recipe.

Ingredients:
- 800gr of beef meat with a little fat (I do not like it too much fat)
- 4cloves of small red onion
- 8cloves of garlic
- 5 candle nuts
- 4cm of ginger
- 1tsp of shrimp paste
- 2tsp of ground coriander
- 1tsp of ground white pepper
- 1tsp of ground cummin
- 1tsp of ground kencur
- 4cm of galangal
- 4 lime leaves
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 10 of blanched chili paddy
- salt
- sweet soy sauce
- 1Tbsp of palm sugar
- 1/2 can of coconut milk
- oil for saute



Side dish:
- fried onion
- fried tempeh
- shrimp crackers (I did not serve it this time)

Directions:
Boil the beef with water until tender, keep the broth a side for later use, and cut the beef into small cubes. Crush onion, garlic, candle nuts, ginger and shrimp paste in a blender until smooth. Saute it with a little bit of oil for 2minutes. Add coriander, pepper, cummin, kencur, galangal and lime leaves and stir it well. Add the meat and stir it. Add blanched chili, cinnamon stick, salt, sweet soy sauce, broth and palm sugar. Cook and stir until boiling. Continue to cook for another 10-15min, until all the seasoning immersed. Discard the cinnamon stick and then add coconut milk. Cook until boiling again and turn off the stove.
To serve, line a plate with a piece of banana leaf. Place a scoop of warm steam rice and then pour Gandul over. Sprinkle some fried onion and add some fried tempeh at side. Originally instead of spoon, they used "suru"-a small long piece of banana leaf to eat (see the first picture).