Balinese Cooking Class

Whilst on my travels I have decided to try to expand my cooking skills and recipe repertoire. Luckily for me this lesson started with an early morning visit to the market with an introduction to lots of new ingredients and an explanation of how each food is used in Balinese cooking.

The market was bustling with people, sights, colours, sounds and smells - even though by 8am it was winding down (the food market opens at 3am). There was a huge array of cooked food/snacks, ingredients and flowers/incense for the offerings.

Here are some photos - but nothing can convey the smells and sounds!

This is the Balinese version of a ready meal - the bags contain an assortment of pre-cooked sauces that you can add your own meat/fish/veg to later.

Flowers for the offerings.

Then we returned to the kitchen to cook, where there is an offering placed next to the pot on the stove.

I've never cooked in a tropical garden before!

Then we set to work! There is a lot of chopping to do - the first job is to make the Balinese sauce, which is a spicy paste containing ginger, chilli, turmeric (fresh, white and yellow), onions, garlic, galanga and a lot of other things. The ingredients are very finely chopped and then ground in a pestle and mortar (check out my disciplined chopping in the bowl below! And yes - I did make a mess whilst doing this, but no blue plasters were required after I was taught how to chop properly).

I learnt how to make: corn fritters, Tempe with sweet sauce (a tofu based veg side dish in sweet chilli), chicken satay (served on sticks made from coconut bark, with no peanuts in sight!), Balinese soup with spicy fish balls, Nasi Goreng (Balinese version of egg fried rice) and for desert Babur Injin which is black and sticky rice in coconut milk and cinnamon. So after all my hard work I did feel like I earned the feast laid out in front of me - it was delicious!