4 TRENDS LESSONS BALINESE COOKERY SIGNATURE DISH Did you pack Calling all spice cadets your own ...................................................... snacks, ma’am? Samantha Brown [email protected] ...................................................... Susan Jung [email protected] A bumbu is on the stove; a pivotal ingredient in Balinese cuisine, the paste of chillies, garlic, shallots, A couple of weeks ago, a little beagle candlenut, nutmeg, ginger, came sniffing around me. Normally, turmeric, palm sugar, shrimp paste I would be on my knees attempting and lemon grass bubbles away. to pet the dog, which is one of my But you won’t find bumbu being favourite breeds. This time, I stared used in most of the tourist at it, hoping that if I concentrated restaurants around the island, warns hard enough, it would just go away. our teacher, Swiss chef Heinz von The dog was being led around by Holzen, who brushes off our guesses a customs official at Los Angeles at what Bali’s indigenous dishes airport, and it was sniffing my bags might be. Forget gado gado – mixed for contraband items. I had packed a vegetables with peanut sauce, fair amount of food for my parents originally a Javanese dish. Nasi and relatives: dried scallops, dried goreng and mie goreng – fried rice mushrooms and fried lotus seeds. and fried noodles – are a Chinese None of it, to my knowledge, was import. And some form of satay, The view from Bali Asli cooking school run by Penelope Williams in Gelumpang village in the northeast of the island contraband. The problem is that the meat on a stick, is pretty much US changes its list of illicit products found in every major global cuisine. so often that I never know from one Though as with many cuisines glass of the snake fruit beer after you Hotel Tugu Australian hotelier and author trip to the next if what I’m bringing it’s about getting four flavours in the fold your banana leaf packages of Jalan Pantai Batu Bolong, Canggu Beach, Janet de Neefe runs the most in is still legal. right balance – sweet, salty, sour and pesan be pasih, or spiced fish fillet tel: +62 361 473 1701 popular cooking school in the After questioning me about what hot – Bali’s cuisine is different and if steamed in banana leaf. And forget tuguhotels.com/bali hill town of Ubud. Our class is taken the beagle had found in my luggage you don’t know what you’re looking using implements when it comes to Hotel Tugu on Bali’s west coast by Balinese chef Inengah Oleg that was so interesting, the customs for, how are you going to find it? A tossing Balinese salads; our urap offers classes in a replica of an Sudira, who has worked with de official went away without making cooking class is a good first foray paku kacang merah, or fern tip salad Indonesian warung or streetside Neefe for nearly two decades; me open my bags. into the world of fresh spices that with coconut and red beans, is restaurant with Ibu (“mother”) experience has not diminished his I’ve never smuggled food into Balinese food blooms from. Here are mixed by hand. Soelastri from Malang in East Java. enthusiasm for Balinese food, which the US – smuggling is, by definition, some choices; all classes cook meals Classes usually begin with either She speaks little English; this is more he shares with students on a a deliberate attempt to bring in as a group rather than individually. a farm walk, local market visit or a about watching her in action, morning market tour. illegal items. boat trip with a fisherman, and cost although another hotel staffer will Oleg knows the women serving I have been caught with food that Bali Asli 800,000 rupiah (HK$650). help translate your queries. nasi campur bungkus or rice with a I had to throw in the bin, such as Jalan Raya Gelumpang, Gelumpang You’ll select five dishes to mixture of dishes to go – “It’s like pork floss and prawn crackers from Village, Amlapura, Karangasem, Bumbu Bali Cooking School prepare, which the class will make your McDonald’s,” he quips. He’ll Thailand, laap yuk (Chinese bacon) tel: +62 828 9703 0098 Jalan Pratama, Tanjung Benoa, from scratch – my favourites are tell you exactly how many cups of and Yunnan ham. But because I had baliasli.com.au tel: +62 361 771 256 jukut ares or banana stem soup, and coffee you get from a bag and that declared these on the customs form, This earthy restaurant looks out over balifoods.com ayam pelalah, Balinese shredded you should buy vanilla in Bali, but I wasn’t fined. I wouldn’t have tried emerald green paddies and up to chicken. Although you’ll get recipes avoid “saffron” – it’s more likely to to bring them into the US if I had majestic Gunung Agung, Bali’s at the end, Soelastri does everything be safflower. known they were going to make me highest peak – but don’t let the from memory and taste. Back at the Honeymoon throw them away. incredible view distract from the I love the authenticity combined Guesthouse-based school, he leads But often, the list of illegal items encyclopaedic knowledge that with a lack of pretension here; while the group through its paces, doesn’t make sense. Why, for Western-trained chef Penelope purists might recoil, “chicken ingredients ready to go. My favourite instance, have I been able to import Williams shares with her students. powder” or stock powder, is one of dish here is an anchovy sambal, a laap cheung (Chinese wind-dried Whether she’s getting you to the ingredients Soelastri uses with crunchy concoction whose star is sausages) but not laap yuk? taste a raw peanut for the first time feisty chef’s pinches – these days, it’s the deep-fried, tiny fish. Visiting people abroad can be a (it tastes, as the name suggests, just clearly part of the Javanese and Meats such as chicken, pork and trial when it comes to gifts. like a green pea) or explaining how Balinese cooking vernacular. duck are usually only eaten by When I went to France in July, I to tuck grated fresh turmeric into Classes can include a visit to Balinese on ceremonial days, Oleg packed lychees at the request of a your belly button for an upset Bumbu Bali Pasar Badung in Denpasar (1.04 says. Everyday fare is more likely to friend. I worried about it, because tummy, you’ll learn something new million rupiah with a market visit.) include anchovies, tofu, tempe or we weren’t sure if it was legal to here on the ingredient front alone. Heinz von Holzen’s classes are smoked fish. bring fresh fruit into the EU. But Then there are the dishes, usually dizzying. The long-time Bali-based Casa Luna Cooking School Still, whatever’s on the menu, a nobody at customs asked me any five or six, which we prepare though chef and author of five Balinese Jalan Bisma, Ubud, bumbu will likely be there to fire up questions or checked my luggage. the ingredients are mostly already cookbooks is in turn stern, hilarious, tel: +62 361 973 282 the dishes. (Classes with a market I know that when travelling to peeled, chopped and sliced. Sip a informative and entertaining. casalunabali.com/cooking-school visit cost 300,000 rupiah.) Australia, it’s best not to bring in any Von Holzen takes a scientific food at all. They’ll just make you approach to his cooking, which is throw it away. It’s understandable, reassuring if you don’t know your because they want to ensure that the galangal from your ginger. continent is safeguarded against the Everything is prepared with military intrusion of non-native wildlife, precision here – you won’t touch a which they worry will decimate the knife, but you will get a chance to native plants and animals. grind spices in the open-faced But the officials tend to treat mortar and pestle typically used in people like criminals, asking the Bali, or have a go at stir-frying in the same thing over and over again, open-air kitchen. You’ll make up to thinking that they’ll trick you into two dozen dishes. admitting something. Do take the early morning After a holiday, it’s such a relief to market tour, which takes in a wet come back to Hong Kong, where the market as well as Jimbaran’s fish only prohibited items (that I know market, where most of the island’s of) are raw meat and plants with soil. restaurants source their seafood. When I’m getting ready for the (Classes with a market visit cost 1.03 return trip home, I pack my bags A class at Bali Asli million rupiah.) Nasi campur at Bali Asli without worrying..