Balinese dishes

1. Sayur Urab – Balinese Mixed Vegetables

 

While Bali is most famous for its meat dishes such as babi guling, no Balinese meal would be complete without at least one vegetable dish. Sayur urab (Balinese mixed vegetables) is a really simple dish to make and provides a slightly cooler counterpart to the other spicier dishes that it might be served with.

Sayur Urab can be served hot but it’s more common to have it cold in Bali because the owners of food stalls will prepare the vegetables and spices in advance then just mix them together for each portion they sell.

Ingredients: (serves four people)
200g beansprouts
200g green beans

Spices for the vegetables:
1 cup dessicated coconuts
1 bay leaf
1 kaffir lime leaf
1 stick of lemongrass (crushed)
½ a cube of vegetable stock (mixed with 2 cups of hot water)
salt and pepper (to taste)

Spice paste:

(grind in a pestle and mortar or blend in a food processor)
1 cm ginger
1 cm galangal
2 cm tumeric (or 1 tsp tumeric powder)
1 chilli pepper (use more if you like it spicy!)
1 shallot
3 cloves of garlic

Instructions:
1.Mix the dessicated coconut with the ground spice paste, bay leaf, kaffir lime leaf, 2 cups of vegetable stock, lemon grass. Simmer and reduce until there is only a little water remaining. Add salt and pepper to taste. Remove from the heat and leave to cool.
2. Boil the green beans and beansprouts until they are cooked but still a little crispy, then remove from the pan and drain.
3. Add the spices to the vegetables just before serving and mix thoroughly.

This dish can be served hot or cold. If you want to serve it as a cold salad, remember to only mix the vegetables and spices just before serving. For an authentic Balinese touch, add some fried peanuts or shallots on top of the sayur urab before you eat it.

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 2. Lawar Bali

Lawar is one of Bali’s most famous local dishes. Made from pig’s blood and spices, together with an assortment of other goodies, lawar can be found in every village in Bali.

What is Lawar?
Balinese cuisine has many signature dishes including babi guling and bebek betutu. One of the local dishes that all Balinese love is lawar, with every family making lawar at special occassions such as ceremonies. Attending a wedding ceremony in Bali, foreigner might be asked “Bani ngajeng lawar?” (“Are you brave enough to eat lawar?”). The ingredients of lawar as well as the taste mean westerners often aren’t immediately taken by it.

Ingredients in lawar:
Balinese traditional spices such as kunyit, shrimp paste, salt and ground pepper, galangal and other roots; grated coconut, green beans, boiled young jackfruit and occasionally, singkong leaves, all chopped up and blended together.


Meats used in lawar
The meat distinguishes the type of lawar – chicken, duck, beef, pork, turtle, or even dragonfly. Although it is considered a delicacy at ceremony time, fortunately turtle lawar is becoming less and less common. Dragonfly lawar is most unusual because it takes so much time and money because you have to use so many dragonflies to fill you up! Most lawar has raw blood mixed with it but not all Balinese like this and many prefer their lawar vegetarian.

Below is a recipe for making red Lawar Bali.

Ingredients:

* 10 bean stalk, cut in small slices.
* 300 g young jackfruit, cut in small slices.
* 2 stalks lemongrass, crushed.
* 2 bay leaves.
* 7 fruit chili, cut in small slices.
* 100 grams of aged coconut, grated, roasted.
* 7 cloves garlic, cut in small slices, fried dried.
* 10 red onions, cut in small slices, fried dried.
* 3 pieces of red chilli, cut in small slices, fried.
* cooking oil to taste.


Subtle Seasonings:

* 10 red onions.
* 5 cloves garlic.
* 5 cm kencur.
* 3 cm galangal.
* 7 grain pecan.
* 3 cm turmeric.
* 20 grams sugar.


How to make:

1. Heat the cooking oil.
2. saute until fragrant spices finely.
3. Input string beans, young jackfruit, lemon grass, bay leaves, and cayenne pepper. Stirring occasionally, until cooked.
4. Add the toasted coconut, garlic, onion, and red chili fries. Mix well.
5. Remove and serve with rice and side dishes.


Lawar & ceremonies:
On the day of a ceremony Balinese people rise early to prepare food. The men will take care of the sate, the women chopping away preparing vegetables. Men are also responsible for the lawar and sit in a circle, chopping, chatting, and mashing, generally socializing. There’s no rush in Balinese ceremonies and the men enjoy chatting, sipping a coffee of some arak, while making the lawar.

3. Ayam sisit – Balinese shredded chicken

Ayam sisit is a great dish to make when you are having a lot of guests over because it’s really simple and easy for people to help themselves to as much of it as they want. For this reason, it’s popular food for celebrations in Bali and people will often make a huge bowl of it along with another of sayur urab and loads of steamed rice for guests to help themselves to.

The ayam sisit recipe we have here is also great for using up cooked chicken leftovers from another meal. Although this recipe uses boiled chicken, it works just as well if you shred up leftover roast chicken, too.

Ingredients:
250g chicken
the juice of half a lime
3 tbsp cooking oil

Spice paste: (chop finely then grind in a pestle and mortar)
1 shallot
4 cloves of garlic
2 large red chilli peppers
1/2 tsp cumin powder
1/2 tsp coriander seeds
1 candlenut
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp terasi (shrimp paste)
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:
1. Boil or steam the chicken until cooked through then leave to cool. Once cool, shred the chicken using two forks to pull it apart.
2. Mix the chicken with the spice paste then add the lime juice and 3 tablespoons of oil. Continue mixing (with your hands is best) until the oil and spices are distributed evenly.
3. Heat a pan with a little oil and add the mixed chicken and spices. Fry until the frayed ends of the shredded pieces of chicken just start to turn crispy.

 

4. HOW TO MAKE SATE LILIT BALI

Sate lilit is so popular in Bali, Indonesia. Probably, you often eating and making satay but sate lilit from Bali has special taste and it is become one of favorite dish in Bali. And if you want to taste delicious sate lilit from Bali, here is the recipe how to make it.

Ingredients to make sate lilit:

1.             Mashed chicken meat, 250 gram

2.             Whole white pepper, crushed coarse

3.             Salt, ¾ teaspoon

4.             Sugar, ½ teaspoon

5.             Egg, 1

6.             Young coconut, ¼ parts from whole coconut (grated)

7.             Red hot chili pepper, 4 (sliced finely)

8.             Orange leaf, 3 (sliced thin)

9.             Lemon grass, 15 sticks (cleaned and then slice the edge of lemon grass)

10.           Tapioca flour, 1 tablespoon

11.           Coconut oil, 1 tablespoon (for greasing)

Mashed seasonings:

1.             Red shallot, 6

2.             Galirc, 2

3.             Kencur (Kaempferia galanga L.), 1 cm

4.             Ginger, 1 cm

5.             Ginger plant, 1 cm

6.             Roasted terasi (shrimp pasta), 1 teaspoon

7.             Whole white pepper, ½ teaspoon

8.             Coriander, ½ teaspoon

9.             Cumin, ½ teaspoon

Directions to make sate lilit

1.             Mix mashed chicken meat with mashed seasoning, white pepper, salt, sugar and egg.

2.             Knead the dough until soft and united.

3.             Mix it with grated young coconut, red hot chili pepper, and orange leaf. Stir it back.

4.             Prepare lemon grass and spread the hump of lemon grass with tapioca flour.

5.             Put 1 tablespoon of chicken dough and spread it. Shape it become round elongated like a pin.

6.             Do this to all of lemon grass and chicken dough.

7.             Roast the sate lilit and turn it side by side until the color changing to be brown and cooked.

8.             Spread it with little bit of oil. Remove sate lilit from roaster.

9.             Make up the sate lilit by cutting the edge of lemon grass.

10.           Sate lilit is ready.

11.           Sate lilit will be more delicious if you eat it with warm rice, and sambal matah.

5.Pulung-pulung ubi – stuffed cassava and coconut balls

Pulung-pulung ubi is one of our favourite coffee snacks. It’s also the single thing visitors to our house most often ask us to make. Pulung-pulung ubi is what is known in Bali as ‘jajanan pasar’ (market cakes/snacks) and is often eaten for breakfast accompanied by a cup of Balinese coffee.

This recipe works really well as a dessert, too and the uncooked pulung-pulung ubi can be left in the fridge then fried just before you want to serve them. They are great served hot with a scoop of ice-cream.

Ingredients: (makes about 15 balls)
700g cassava (peeled)
100g desiccated coconut
1/2 tsp salt
75g palm sugar
vegetable oil (enough to deep fry)

Instructions:
1. Finely grate the cassava until it is a soft pulp (or use a food processor) then mix with the desiccated coconut and salt.
2. Scrape the palm sugar from the block so it is powdered and easy to work with and leave in a separate bowl.
3. Take a small amount of the cassava and coconut mix and roll it into a ball about the size of a ping-pong ball. Make a hole to the centre of the ball with your finger then place a heaped teaspoon of the palm sugar into the middle. Push the opening of the hole closed again and roll the ball around between the palms of your hands to seal the palm sugar inside. Repeat the process until you have used up all the mixture (this recipe makes about 15 balls).
4. Deep-fry the balls in the oil until brown and crispy on the outside.

Serve as a snack with coffee or with a scoop of ice cream as a dessert.

Jaje Dadar – Balinese rolled coconut pancakes

 

If there’s one thing better than a cup of coffee on a sunny Sunday afternoon, it’s a cup of kopi Bali (Balinese coffee). Balinese coffee is strong and sweet, and never complete without ‘jaje’. ‘Jaje’ is the Balinese word for ‘cake’ or ‘sweet’ and the Balinese use it to refer to a whole array of sweet treats and snacks.

This recipe is for a common kind of snack that goes perfectly with kopi Bali. Jaje Dadar – ‘kue dadar gulung’ in other parts of Indonesia – are thin pancakes stuffed with sweet coconut. The pancakes in the picture are green and that colour can be achieved by adding food colouring or pandan leaves if you want. However, to keep things simple, this recipe doesn’t use colouring so if you follow it, your pancakes will be the normal colour.

Ingredients:

For the pancakes:
200g plain flour
2 eggs
450ml milk
3 tablespoons of melted butter

For the filling:
50g sugar (or a little more if you like it sweeter!)
100g dessicated coconut
¼ spoon vanilla essence

Instructions:

1)  Make the batter by mixing eggs and melted butter then adding the flour and milk and mixing until there are no lumps. Put the batter through a sieve and add a pinch of salt then leave in the fridge for half an hour to rest.

2)  Mix the coconut and sugar and add the vanilla essence and a dash of water to hold it all together.

3)  Put the mixture in a frying pan and heat while stirring until the water has gone and the sugar has combined with the coconut. Once the mixture is cooked, leave it to cool again.

4)  Heat a pan to a medium temperature and grease it with a little butter. Once hot, add a spoonful of batter (which has been resting in the fridge) to the pan. Swirl the batter around the pan to form a thin pancake (like a crepe – the thinner the better) and once the bottom is cooked, turn and cook the other side. When cooked through, remove from the pan and leave to cool. Repeat the process until you’ve finished off the batter.

5)  When the pancakes are cool, take a spoonful of your filling mixture and place it in a strip in the middle of the pancake. Fold the sides of the pancake in, fold the bottom up, then roll it upwards to finish it (see the diagram). Repeat the process until you have a nice big pile of pancake rolls!

Balinese Ikan Bakar (Balinese Grilled Fish)

 

Eating ikan bakar (grilled fish) on a beach while watching the sun set in Bali is one of the greatest joys life has to offer. There are loads of ways of making ikan bakar but this simple Balinese recipe is one of our favourites and you can use it with almost any fish you like. In the summer, this recipe works really well cooked on a barbecue or you can even cook the fish over an open fire on the beach if you want a truly authentic experience.

In Bali, we tend to cook a couple of really big fish and let everyone share them but if you’re limited to what you can get in the supermarket, cooking a small fish per person works just as well. We’ve suggested serving this with rice but it also works really well with just a salad if you’re cutting down on your carbs.

The sambal matah (spice mix) for this dish packs a serious punch because it’s got a lot of raw chilli in it, if you prefer something a little sweeter, try serving this withsambal tomat.

The fish:
In Bali, we tend to use snapper but this recipe will work with most white sea-fish. In the photos, we used two sea bass and two bream.

For the marinade:
Juice of 2 lemons
10 garlic
15 cm fresh turmeric (or 1 tbsp tumeric powder)

For the sambal matah:
2 shallots( finely sliced)
2 chillies(finely )
2 lemongrass ( finely chopped)
½ tsp shrimp paste ( grill into the oven for 3 minutes)
4 tbsp veg oil
salt for taste

Method / Steps :

1)  Clean the fish thoroughly, score the skins to let it soak up the marinade and make it easier to get off the bone later, then squeeze the lemons over it making sure to cover the fish and get some juice in the gills and the cavity. Crush the garlic and turmeric in a pestle and mortar or blend in a food processor.

(Crush the garlic and turmeric in a pestle and mortar)

2)  After that, cover the fish in the marinade paste, cover with clingfilm and put in the refrigerator for 30 minutes or more.

3)  Cook the fish on a griddle, grill or barbecue over a high heat aiming to get the fish a little crispy on the outside but not overdone in the middle.

4)  To make the sambal matah, chop the shallots, chilli and lemon grass really finely then mix together with the, shrimp paste, vegetable oil and salt.

5)  Make the Tomatoes Sauce and serve with rice and sayur urab any other vegetables of your choice. Serve the sambal matah on the side so diners can take as much or as little of it as you need.

Tempe lalah manis – Sweet and spicy tempe

Tempe is a common alternative to meat in Indonesian cooking and is thought to be very healthy. This recipe for sweet, spicy tempe works really well as a starter or a main course and can be easily adapted for vegetarians by leaving out the terasi (shrimp paste) and adding a little extra salt to compensate.

Although tempe can be tricky to find in the supermarket, many health-food shops and Asian supermarkets stock it. Tempe freezes really well so buying it in bulk when you see it isn’t a problem.

In this recipe, the palm sugar gives the sweetness and helps cancel out some of the acidity of the chilli. If you can’t find palm sugar, brown sugar will do. If you want to make the recipe even spicier, substitute the large red chilli for two smaller ones.

Ingredients: (serves 4-6)
1 block of tempe (about 225 grams) sliced or cut into thin strips
Enough vegetable or ground nut oil to cover the tempe when deep-frying
3 tsp palm sugar (or brown sugar if you can’t find any)

Spice paste: (to be ground in a pestle and mortar or food processor)
4 cloves of garlic
1 large red chilli
1 tomato
1/2 spoon of terasi (shrimp paste)
salt and pepper (to taste)

Instructions:
1. In a wok or deep-fat-fryer heat some oil (enough to cover the tempe) and deep-fry the tempe. This usually works best if you do it a few pieces at a time, that way you will need less oil.
2. When golden brown on the outside, take the tempe out of the oil and leave it to drain.
3. Get rid of the oil except for about three tablespoons then lightly fry the spice paste in the remaining oil to release the flavours. Add the palm sugar and continue to while stirring until the oil is red and has mixed with the spice paste.
4. Add the tempe and stir-fry until evenly covered in the sauce.

Serve with rice or noodles.