Kedah Beef Dalca (Dalca Daging Kedah)

I murdered this recipe. In cold blood. My apologies to Ms Betty Saw and the good people of Kedah. But I digress. Let me ask you a question. Have you ever wondered if a recipe in a cookbook is complete? I mean, was it properly edited and there are no errors or omissions? Do I sound like an auditor?

Turned out good after tweaking.

Looking at the Dalca Daging Kedah recipe in Betty Saw's Rasa Malaysia, I felt that something was amiss. No onions, no garlic, no ginger. The spice mix was made up of dried chillies and dry spices. Did the typist accidentally leave out a section of the recipe? I could not google for verification against other dalca recipes as my new home computer was not installed yet (the old one died 3 weeks ago). And to go through my other cookbooks would take forever.

Spice mix as per recipe.

Going against my better judgement, I went ahead. I sauteed the blended ingredients and as expected, it did not smell as good as it should have as it was missing onions, garlic and ginger.

Blended spice mix.

The recipe also calls for marinating the beef ribs with kerisik (pounded dessicated coconut). I put too much and the gravy had a strong coconut smell.

Beef ribs marinated with kerisik. I put way too much.

Well, I had to do something. I could have sauteed some onions, garlic and ginger and plonked it into the dalca. But I didn't. Instead, I added a packet of curry powder. And at the end of the cooking, I fried some dried chillies and cumin and added that to the dalca. And that rescued my dish.

My gravy smelled too strongly of kerisik.

This morning at the office, I googled for other dalca recipes and sure enough, they had onions, garlic and ginger and curry powder. I am reproducing Betty Saw's recipe below and I have added (my own estimate) onions, garlic, ginger and curry powder. Will I repeat this dish? Oh yes, it was a good dish and I had always wanted to cook dalca. But of course my next attempt will be better when I add the missing ingredients :)

Kedah Beef Dalca (Dalca Daging Kedah)
Recipe from : Rasa Malaysia by Betty Saw (page 232)(Bahasa Malaysia Edition)
Note : Ingredients and notes in blue are what I think is inadvertently missing from the original recipe.

Ingredients :
- 300g beef with or without bones, cut into 2.5cm pieces
- Grated coconut from 1/2 coconut for kerisik
- 3 tablespoons cooking oil
- 750ml thin santan
- 1 brinjal, cut diagonally into 2.5cm pieces
- 5 longbeans, cut into 5cm pieces
- 2 red chillies, deseeded and cut into halves
- 4 belimbing, cut into halves
- 2 potatoes, peeled and cut into 2cm cubes and fried
- 2 tomatoes, cut into quarters
- 2 teaspoons salt (or to taste)

Blended ingredients :
- 15 dried chillies, soaked
- 2 teaspoons corriander seeds
- 1/2 teaspoons fennel seeds
- 1/2 teaspoons cumin seeds
- 1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns
- 1/2 teaspoon tumeric powder
- 0.6cm cinnamon stick
- 1 clove
- 1 star anise

Ingredients to saute :
- 2 big onions, sliced
- 4 cloves garlic, pounded 
- 1 inch ginger, pounded
- 1 packet meat curry powder, mixed with a bot of water to form a paste.

Method :
- Marinate beef with kerisik and set aside for 15 minutes.
- Heat oil in a pot and saute onions till it softens and turns translucent.
- Add garlic, ginger, curry paste and blended ingredients and fry until fragrant and oil rises to the top.
- Add beef and fry for 5 minutes.
- Add santan and bring to a boil until beef is tender.
- Add brinjals, longbeans, chillies, belimbing and potatoes.
- Simmer until vegetables are cooked.
- Add tomatoes and salt to taste.

More notes : 
1. It would be best to dry fry the coriander, fennel and cumin seeds for better aroma before blending.
2. The cinnamon stick, clove and star anise can be left whole.
3. For added flavours, fry some sliced onions until golden brown to garnish the dalca.

I am submitting this post to Malaysian Food Fest, Kedah and Perlis Month hosted by WendyinKK of Table for 2.....or More.