BootsnAll Travel Network



Bali Spice: A Balinese Dinner

In Bali it’s common to cook up food early in the day and continue snacking on it throughout—this may contravene any known food hygiene legislation but is a boon for preparing dinner parties in advance 😉

The vegetable dish, Sayur Urab, tastes great luke-warm, but for tonight I will microwave it and hope that the flavours stand up to the heat. The Balinese chicken curry we sampled during the cookery demonstraton at ‘Bumbu Bali’ in Ubud was hot, so I’ll serve this dinner re-heated.

The menu: Sayur Urab (vegetable mix); Opor Ayam (curried chicken, Bali-style); rice and fruit salad

Sayur Urab
Any vegetable can be used for this dish. In this case, I mixed green beans and finely shredded white cabbage (about 2:1 ratio). Because grating fresh coconut is such a drag, dessicated coconut can be substituted: moisten with a bit of water and chill overnight and it’s the same as the real thing. This dish benefits from a final squirt of kaffir lime juice, if you can find any.

250 g vegetables;
1 cup 250 ml) grated coconut;
2 mild red chillies (deseeded);
3 hot green chillies;
5 red shallots (or equivalent normal shallots, which are bigger);
3 cloves garlic;
¼ tsp shrimp paste (blachan);
1 tsp salt

Steam the vegetables until just tender and chop finely (or as desired). Finely slice the shallots and fry until soft, then add the shredded chillies, crushed garlic, salt and shrimp paste and continue frying until it turns golden. This is sambal goreng. Mix this into the vegetables, along with the grated coconut. Enjoy.

Opor Ayam
This dish was cooked right in front of us, and the chef made it look easy. However, get the dimensions of the pot/volume of liquid wrong, and you’ll end up with a soupy dish reminiscent of some Thai curries. This may not matter much.

1 free-range chicken, skinned and jointed;
2 Tbsp Base gede;
¼ tsp shrimp paste (blachan);
1 tsp salt;
2 Tbsp oil;
2 blades lemongrass;
1 carrot;
1 potato;
3 salam leaves (these are a bit like bayleaf, but don’t give off any odor until cooked);
1 cup coconut milk (if using tinned milk, skim off the upper, more fatty, layer)

Mix the base gede, shrimp paste, salt and oil and rub into the chicken pieces. Place smugly into a large pot and just cover with water. Simmer for ½h or until the chicken is abot half-cooked. Add chunks of potato and carrot, finely shredded lemongrass, salam leaves and coconut milk and cook until done and the sauce has thickened, about another ½h.

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