Easy Asian Meal Prep: Beef Teriyaki & Beef Rendang

Living on my own, far awar from my family has its perks and downs. One of the down is perhaps having to sort out my own food, every single day. Luckily, I love to do grocery shopping and cook anyway! I personally enjoy the whole process of planning and cooking for my weekly meal prep. Anybody else does too?? Anyways, recently I've been missing flavours from back home, so I decided to make these super easy, Asian-inspired rice and noodle meals.

Beef Teriyaki & Beef Rendang meal prep

Asian dishes are known to be oily, and high calorie (all that jasmine rice and stir-fries y'all!). BUT there's always a way around it! For the rice, I used brown rice and to make it more exciting, I cooked it with corn and garlic. So for the noodles, I used shirataki or konjac or 'miracle' noodles. Why miracle, because it practically contains nil calories, thus giving you the full feeling and experience of enjoying noodles, sans the guilt nor concern about gluten or other allergies! Read more about the benefits of this noodles here. What about the taste and texture? It's plain and odourless, taste a bit springy and chewy, like glass noodles. Here's what the noodles look like:

Shopping List:
+ Diced Beef
+ Carrots
+ French beans
+ Corn
+ Onion
+ Garlic
+ Brown rice
+ Konjac noodless (or any other noodles is fine)
+ Rendang paste
+ Teriyaki sauce
+ Coconut milk
+ Oil (olive / coconut) - this would usually be available in your pantry anyway!
+ (optional - as garnish) spring onions, sesame seeds

Corn & Brown Rice

Yields: 2 servings

Ingredients:
- 140gr (uncooked) brown rice
- Water
- Sweet corn kernels, as much as desired
- 1 tsp Minced garlic
- 1 tbsp Olive oil

Steps:
Place brown rice, water, sweet corn and garlic in rice cooker. Drizzle olive oil and switch the rice cooker to "Cook". Fluff up occasionally to avoid the rice sticking at the bottom.

Note: Brown rice absorbs a lot of water, so you can be a bit more generous with the water level

Beef Teriyaki, French Beans & Corn Stir-Fry

Yields: 2 servings

Ingredients:
- 250 gr beef (dice or strips)
- Teriyaki sauce
- French Beans, as much as desired, cut to 3-4 cm strips
- Sweet corn kernels, as much as desired
- 1 Onion, cut into 0.5 - 1 cm thick rings
- 2 cloves Garlic, chopped or minced
- 1 tbsp Oil (olive or coconut)
- (optional) Sesame oil, sesame seeds, spring onions
- (optional) 1 tbsp Corn flour (as thickening)

Steps:
- Marinade beef with teriyaki sauce and minced garlic, leave for 15 minutes
- Heat oil in a pan, add onion rings and garlic to cook until onion is semi-translucent.
- Add the teriyaki-marinated beef, stir occasionally
- Add corn & french beans last, so they retain the crunchy texture. Run 2-3 rounds of sesame oil (if using). Garnish with sesame seeds & fresh spring onions

Note: with good quality teiryaki sauce, there's not even any need to add any other seasoning like salt / sugar!

Beef & Carrot Rendang

Yields: 2 servings

Ingredients:
- 250 gr diced beef
- Rendang paste
- 5-7 tbsp Coconut milk / cream
- 3 medium Carrot sticks, cut into bite-sized chunks
- 1 Onion, cut into 0.5 - 1 cm thick rings
- 2 cloves Garlic, chopped or minced
- 1 tbsp Oil (olive or coconut)

Steps:
- Heat oil in a pan, add onion rings and garlic to cook until onion is semi-translucent.
- Add rendang paste and a little bit of water and the coconut milk, cook until fragrant
- Add diced beef, stir to coat evenly with rendang paste
- Add carrots, let simmer over low heat for at least 1 hour
- Check the stew frequently to ensure they do not dry up. Add water-rendang paste-coconut milk mixture if the beef is not quite tender yet and cook for a little longer.

Note: cooking slowly over low heat tenderizes the beef and help it soak the spices. I prefer to leave the pan uncovered to help water evaporate from the sauce and therefore, caramelize the gravy better.

With the above, I could already come up with 4 meal combinations!

Beef Teriyaki Konjac Noodles

If you notice, I used AYAM products as the seasoning. Yup, that's because I recently received a box of goodies filled with the sauces and condiments. It was a well-earned 'reward' for successfully recreating the dishes that TV Presenter and Celebrity Cook Adam Liaw demonstrated at AYAM's 125th Anniversary cooking class the other day. AYAM is a renowned Malaysian brand (I always thought it's an Indonesian brand somehow!) that produces quality Asian cooking products, even noodles and ready-to-eat desserts. I've been cooking for a while now, so I'm quite confident with my judgement about the quality.

Adam Liaw was talking about the difference about 'taste' and 'flavour'. Yes, they are different and often used interchangeably, hence the mix up. Basically taste refers to sweet, salty, sour, bitter and umami; whereas flavour refers to the whole mouthful experience, for example spicy beef rendang flavour or beef teriyaki flavour. Flavour is what makes the whole eating experience exciting because it is multi-sensory (taste, sight. texture, smell) , we get exposed to endless permutation of combos!

Adam Liaw's demo-ed Red Beef & Vegetables Curry (left) and Chicken & Prawn Hailam Noodles (right)

Back to the cooking class, after the demonstration by Adam, the participants then recreated the dishes in the cooking theatre and enjoyed it for lunch. Yum!

Thank you AYAM and Adam Liaw for the wonderful experience. And Happy 125th Anniversary to AYAM brand, keep up the amazing creations and spicing up our kitchen with beautiful Asian flavours! :)