This was a first attempt at making nasi brongkos. Typically made with beef (shank or shin), instead, I made patties using ground bison. We loved this dish when we visited Jogjakarta but it took until now to finally want to make it at home. In my research, I was surprised to learn that it uses kluwak (buah keluak in Malaysian) which is the black nut paste which we had fallen inlove with. In this dish, the nut meat is mashed into the bumbu (spice paste) and fried before adding water (I used pork stock since I didn't have beef stock and since I was using ground meat that I wasn't cooking for a long time, wanted some extra mouthfeel) and coconut milk. We had originally thought that this dish used a few dried spices like cloves and cinnamon, but not one recipe/video of people making it used spices other than some ground coriander - although maybe 3/4 or the recipes used another unexpected ingredient - fresh kencur. Typically, this dish has a more soupy consistency but I decided to make mine thicker as I was nervous that the flavor would be too diluted. All in all, it was delicious, but I think it needs a little work to make it how we remembered it.
