Balinese cooking (class)
Growing up, I had a fair exposure to Indonesian cooking, so I was really looking forward to the food here. From discussions we've had with people we've met along the way, for many visitors to Bali it's their first exposure to Indonesian or Balinese cuisine, but uniformly people enjoy the food here. This morning, at Caitlin's recommendation, I attended a Balinese cooking class.
Geoff took the opportunity to explore more of Ubud on foot; you can read about his day and yesterday's walk on our Camino blog.
Having seen how the "average family" cooks while visiting Gede Ari's family, I was curious how the tourist oriented experience would compare.
Both began with purchasing local fresh ingredients to supplement those that were home grown, and in both instances the rice that was used was grown virtually right out the back door. Not surprisingly there was greater attention to hygiene at the cooking school (a necessity when having up to 40 non-local visitors a day). In both instances the food that was produced was excellent and had a very distinctive flavour integrating coconut, shallots, ginger and chilies. Both meals included rice as a staple, satay (Indonesian skewers made with meat, coconut and spices), soup, and vegetables. Both took place in a village setting, but the cooking school village is definitely more affluent. Both meals required the hands of many cooks to put the meal together; there's lots of chopping and grinding required.
At the cooking school they joked about the mortar and pestles (of all sizes) they used being called "Balinese blender" and noted that for most of us, processes that take several minutes can be done with just two pulses of our blenders or food processors. At the cooking school we mainly cooked with gas...in Gede Ari's village it was mostly open fire.
I was concerned I wouldn't enjoy the cooking school experience as much, after having the authentic Balinese home meal experience, but the purpose of each event was different enough that my enjoyment of the first didn't impact the second...and now I have recipes to be able to replicate some of the food here.
At the core of Balinese cooking are two sauces; yellow sauce (Balinese curry, which is a very mild curry that I like), and peanut sauce. The yellow sauce is the primary sauce, and the idea is that you can make it every couple of weeks, keep it in the fridge and use as much or as little as is needed for the dishes being prepared - it's in most of the dishes we've eaten here. Peanut sauce has a much shorter shelf life so has to be made more often. Also at the core are coconut products; coconut cream, coconut oil, coconut shoots and grated coconut. Shallots (fresh and deep fried) garlic, ginger, turmeric and red chilies are also found in most dishes. Palm sugar, boiled into syrup is the primary sweetener.
Our class began with a trip to the market,
First we were treated to a welcome drink.
