Vegetables (cut into large chunks if cooking with Instant Pot):
2largepotatoespeeled and cut into large chunks
2large tomatoesquartered
Garnishes:
Fried crispy shallots
Chinese celery leavesfinely chopped
Instructions
Grind the aromatics:
Place ingredients for aromatics in food processor and grind into fine pieces or a paste
Cooking with pressure cooker:
Melt the butter in an inner pot of Instant Pot pressure cooker. Add in ground aromatics and stir fry for about 5 minutes. Add the beef, herb, spice, and seasonings. Add potatoes and tomatoes. Pour in the 1/4 cup of water (yes, I know that sounds like not much at all). Stir to mix. Not much liquid is lost and you'll be surprised by how much liquid you ended up with later. Scrape the bottom of the pot to make sure nothing is stuck there
Cover the lid. Turn the steam release valve to "sealing". Set timer to 25 minutes and make sure it's on "high pressure". Wait 5 minutes and then release pressure completely after that. Unlock the lid and have a taste and season with salt if needed. It should be savory and slightly sweet. Proceed to serving
Cooking on the stove:
Melt the butter in a large pot. Add in ground aromatics, nutmeg and bay leaves. Stir fry until fragrant. Add the beef and seasonings. Pour in the 4 cups of water. Bring to a boil and lower the heat and slowly simmer for about 45 minutes to 1 hour or until the meat is tender. Add the potatoes and tomatoes after 30 minutes of cooking. Gently stir everything to mix. Have a taste and season with salt if needed. It should be slightly sweet from the sweet soy sauce
When ready to serve:
If using cellophane noodles, blanch the cellophane noodles in boiling water, it just take few seconds to soften. Portion into individual bowl and portion out the beef and potatoes over each bowl. Laddle the hot broth over the noodles. Garnish with fried shallot crisp and celery leaves. Drizzle with some kecap manis and you are good to go. Or just serve this with rice on the side
Notes
Traditionally, we used deep-fried potatoes, you can deep fry the potatoes or if you are lazy like me sometimes ;) you can just add the potatoes and carrots 10 minutes before the end of cooking time. Roasting or deep-frying the potatoes first sure makes it taste even better.