Balinese Cooking Bliss in Ubud
The view of rice paddies from the rear of our rented villa.
The smell of Bali is already laced with fresh jasmine, and the permeating scents of flora and fauna too numerous to differentiate. As you make your way to the charming yet bustling town of Ubud, the smells of nag champa tinged with a touch of scooter exhaust takes over your senses. Being the food-centric travelers that we are, we found ourselves wanting to dive into the culinary delights of the region. Everything we saw and smelt thus far had been truly eye opening and cathartic; but let’s face it, we wanted to cook!
Balinese cuisine at first glance appears simplistic, colorful, yet promises big flavor. It is both comforting and complex, spicy yet consistent throughout the entire dish. Like many South East Asian cuisines, the beauty is in the simple preparation, but the genius of it all resides in the artful sauces which can elevate an unsuspecting chicken dish into something truly special.
Pounding peanuts for their quintessential peanut sauce, finely chopping garlic, peppers, and ginger only to be later transferred to a mortar and pounded into Bali’s version of sambal. Bumbu Bali is Bali’s salsa, it’s Bali’s ketchup, it’s spicy, funky, delicious, and a labor of love to make.
It literally took ten nonstop minutes of pounding just to get the right consistency and all the ingredients melded together. This may not look like a grueling day at the gym, but when you’re cooking outside and it’s 90 degrees with 80% humidity, I guarantee that you’ll feel it.
One of the most arduous tasks at our cooking class was wrapping a piece of beautifully marinated ahi tuna in banana leaves and tying them off. For those of you who have your needle point on pointe, then this should be no trouble at all. For the rest of us with clumsy fingers and who are famished, this was a task for the birds. But, really though, it was truly spectacular to be a part of this whole process. Undertaking an entirely new and unfamiliar cuisine’s most traditional dishes was yet another blessed experience that we were fortunate enough to be a part of.
Speaking of blessed, let me tell you who made this experience even more memorable, our instructor Ketut. He has the soul of a chef, a teacher, and quite frankly a comedian who has jokes that only he can hear in his head. I never thought that anyone would find pounding hot peppers humorous, but Ketut did. Do you think that explaining the difference between ginger and galangal is funny? Me neither. But, Ketut did, and that joy and enthusiasm was contagious. I admire his outlook on life. What I admire most though is his instruction, and drive to help visitors to create a wonderfully flavorful and traditional Balines feast.
