Balinese people eat rice with most meals. They also eat with their fingers but they give tourists a spoon and fork to eat with. Two of the most common dishes here are Nasi Goreng (rice and vegetables) and Mei Goreng (noodles and vegetables). Balinese people also like their food spicy so they add a lot of chili or chili sauce to it.
I did a cooking course in Ubud and I took the Flat Stanleys with me.
They had all of the ingredients ready for us and we just needed to cut, grind, mix, cook and assemble them.
Peanut Sauce and Sate
All of the ingredients were chopped up then ground together to make a paste.
Then the paste was cooked in a pan with stock and soy sauce.
The peanut sauce was used in lots of the dishes but it is also served with sate (sar-tay) which is meat cooked on a stick.
Sates are cooked over hot embers. The person cooking them waves a fan above the embers to make them hotter. There are lots of people on the side of the streets all around Bali cooking sate.
Bumbu Bali (Balinese multi purpose spices)
All of these ingredients go into the Bumbu Bali which is used in lots of different recipes.
All of the ingredients are ground together.
Sambal Ulek (spicy sauce)
All of these ingredients are chopped and sautéed then ground together.
Pepes Ikan (steamed fish in banana leaf)
We flavoured some tuna with Bumbu Bali then rolled it in a banana leaf with basil leaves and slices of tomato.
Then they were steamed over a pot of water.
Then they were grilled over the same embers as the chicken.
Sweet Potato in a Palm Sugar Gravy
There was rice too, of course.
How many spices did you use?
ReplyDeleteHi Ava,
DeleteWe used lots of spices but mainly fresh ones. There is chili, ginger and garlic in most of the dishes. We used 3 different types of ginger too. They all looked and tasted slightly different.
Nikki
Sorry that one was from Ava.
ReplyDeleteFred asks: Was it hard to do the grinding?
ReplyDeleteHi Fred,
DeleteIt was quite hard work doing the grinding because the wooden stick was very heavy. We all took turns though so it was ok.
Nikki
Phoebe asks: Was the food really spicy?
ReplyDeleteHi Phoebe,
DeleteWe didn't make the food too spicy. There was a spicy sauce we could add to our food it we liked it spicy. I made my food spicy by adding lots of the spicy sauce.
Nikki
Godley asks: was the food nice?
ReplyDeleteHi Godley Class,
DeleteI thought the food was really nice and so did the other people doing the cooking course. There were lots of different flavours and then the yummy sweet dessert.
Nikki
Nikki
Paquita aks: what were some of the names of dishes you have eaten?
ReplyDeleteHi Paquita,
DeleteThe main dish I have eaten, that you can get everywhere, is Nasi Goreng. It is fried rice with vegetables and meat. You can choose chicken, beef or seafood usually. Sometimes it comes with a fried egg and rice crackers (like the prawn crackers you get at chinese restaurants).
Nasi campur is a selection of different foods. The one I got had chicken (ayam) skewers (sate), grilled tuna, rice, 2 types of vegetables, some tofu and three different sauces.
Pepes is when food is cooked in banana leaves.
Gado gado is steamed vegetables coveres in satay sauce.
There are so many different dishes over here and sometime the same dish tastes totally different in a different warung (restaurant).
Nikki
Ruby asks: Are there any chicken nibbles in Indonesia?
ReplyDeleteHi Ruby,
DeleteI love chicken nibbles! I have had fried chicken (ayam goreng) but it was a thigh. I have only seen chicken wings on a menu once but not chicken nibbles. The drum stick and the thigh seem to be popular parts of the chicken.
Nikki
Lincoln asks: How many spiders did you see at the bird park?
ReplyDeleteHi Lincoln,
ReplyDeleteThere were so many spiders. I think I saw at least 50 but I wasn't looking very hard for them. That's just the ones that were in front of me. I will try and get the photos on the blog soon so you can see some more.
Nikki