Rendang Talua — West Sumatra, Indonesia

Rendang talua, talua meaning egg in the Minangkabau language, applies the slow, spice-thick rendang method to hard-boiled eggs rather than to meat. Peeled eggs are simmered in a coconut milk sauce built on chili, shallot, garlic, ginger, galangal and turmeric until the liquid reduces down to a thick paste that coats each egg. The dish is reported from West Sumatra, where rendang in its many forms is cooked with a wide range of proteins, and it is generally treated as a side dish or a way of stretching a meal rather than the centrepiece a meat rendang usually is. Some households continue the cooking further, drying the eggs down into a crisp, keeping version that travels well. Eggs are boiled and peeled first, and sometimes fried briefly beforehand to firm the surface. A paste of shallot, garlic, chili, ginger, galangal and turmeric is blended and cooked in oil with bruised lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves until fragrant, then coconut milk is added and the sauce is simmered down. The peeled eggs are added once the sauce has thickened somewhat, and the whole pot is cooked uncovered, stirred from time to time, until the sauce has reduced enough to cling to the eggs rather than pool around them. How far the sauce is reduced marks the main variation within the dish: cooked only until thickened, it stays a wet, spoonable sauce over the eggs, while cooked longer it dries almost to a paste that sticks to the shell-free eggs and can be kept for days without refrigeration, a form some households make specifically to take along on journeys.