Recipe Courtesy of Ni Wayan Murni, Murni’s Warung, Campuhan-Ubud, April 18, 2011.
22/3 lb (1.2 kg) long green beans cut into 1¼ in (3 cm) lengths
30 shallots, finely chopped
18 garlic cloves, finely chopped
18 hot chilies, sliced (use more or less chilies according to taste)
2 tbs shrimp paste
2 tbs Masoko chicken powder (or 1 chicken stock cube, crumbled)
small amount of chicken stock to moisten
2 tbs coconut oil
salt and pepper to taste
3 onions, sliced
Heat the oil in a pan and fry all the above ingredients except the green beans, onions and chicken stock until cooked. Use a high heat for 2–3 minutes.
Add the beans and continue to cook until done. Add a little stock if the mixture is too dry.
Fry the onions until crisp and use as a garnish.
Serves 4–6.
Leped Lindung
(PEPES BELUT, EEL ROLLED IN BANANA LEAF)
Leped (Balinese) and Pepes (Bahasa Indonesia) both mean “roll.” Lindung is Balinese for “eel” (kopat is Balinese for sea eel), and belut means eel in Bahasa Indonesia.
Eel is a cheap food in Bali and can be procured all year round. Eels are also plentiful and easy to catch in Nusa Lembongan. Fishermen bring them in every day by boat from the sea (lindung refers to swamp eels). In Bali, eels are sourced and caught in the sawah (rice fields). Belut refers to rice field eels or Asian swamp eels. The essential local cooking process is summed up in three easy, magical words: “Grill, steam and roll!” Either a man or a woman can cook this dish for their family. Sea eels are used for this recipe in Nusa Lembongan.
Recipe courtesy of handsome, smiling, I Wayan Sudirna, the very knowledgeable local Balinese chef at the beautifully designed Tanis Villas resort on stunning Mushroom Bay in Nusa Lembongan. The Tanis Villas boasts exquisite tasting jukung-fresh snapper, tuna and squid. The overnight fishing boats arrive on the beach right outside the Tanis between 7 and 8 a.m. every morning, loaded with a catch of wriggling fresh local tuna. The Tanis Villas is the ideal access point for world-class snorkeling expeditions, mangrove forest adventure tours and journeys to unspoiled sister islands Nusa Ceningan and Nusa Penida. It also has close truck or motorbike proximity to idyllic Dream Beach, picturesque seaweed farms and Lembongan village. www.tanisvillas.com, December 2011.
22/3 lb (1.2 kg) sea eels (10–11 inches/25–28 cm in length)
1 whole young coconut
6 banana leaves for the rolling
1½ oz (40 g) ginger
1 tsp lesser galangal
1½ oz (40 g) turmeric
50 g shallot
40 g garlic
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
½ lb (250 g) small, hot red chilies
kaffir lime leaves
Chop all the Balinese spices until very small and grate the coconut.
Wash the eel, cut off the head and chop into very small, smooth pieces.
Put the eel in a bowl and season with the Balinese spices. Add the grated coconut and mix well.
Roll the mixture in a banana leaf, adding one kaffir lime leaf to each roll. Then, either steam or grill the roll.
If steaming, wrap the eel mixture in only one banana leaf wrapper and place in a traditional Balinese rice steamer (kukusan). Steam for 20 minutes. If grilling, wrap the mixture in 2–3 banana leaves for protection and to retain moisture. Place the roll directly on the flames over an active fire, not a grill, built over a traditional sandpit. A stick on which to string the eel is suspended above the fire, balanced on two large side stones. Grill for 25–30 minutes.
Serves 4–6.
CHAPTER THREE
Traditional Village Foods: Cooking in the Compound
Human nourishment can be divided into four basic food categories according to source: ocean, air, land and field. The Balinese eat all as they pray to the goddess of rice, Dewi Sri, for the ongoing gift of life-sustaining food for their island. In China, there is a saying that the people will “eat anything with wings except an airplane, and anything with four legs except a table.” China’s cooks routinely prepare whatever is available locally, whether for upscale Imperial-style banquet halls or open-air street markets and stalls: braised bear paw (the more tender left paw is preferred), snake meat stir-fried with civet cat, deep-fried crispy scorpion, pangolin (an endangered species) stew, roast dog meat and free-range field rat kebabs!
The meats and ingredients may differ but the sentiment is much the same in Bali. A high Brahman priest told resident cultural observer Miguel Covarrubias in the 1930s that the Balinese are only prohibited from eating “human flesh, tigers, monkeys, dogs, crocodiles, mice, snakes, frogs, certain poisonous fish, leeches, stinging insects, crows, eagles, owls, and birds with moustaches.” Covarrubias also noted that while the Balinese eat chicken, duck, pork and, more rarely, beef and buffalo, they are fond of “stranger foods” like dragonflies (capung), crickets, flying ants and bee larvae.
Common threads run through all of Balinese cuisine but different regional styles and usable food resources are found in every corner of the island. Traditional Balinese foods include such natural elements as dragonflies, baby bees, coconut tree larvae, grilled young bamboo, young bamboo soup, young tree trunk soup, sweet and sour frog, rice field eels in banana leaf, fried rice field snails, nasi sela (rice mixed with sweet potato), nasi jagung (rice mixed with corn) and rock-hard taop nuts. Such delicacies leave an indelible impression on young Balinese children who crave them in adulthood, especially during prolonged absences from their traditional villages.
In western Bali, in particular, informal village foods continue to thrive. Dragonflies are a favorite delicacy although they are difficult and time-consuming to catch as they are continually on the wing, landing only briefly on rice stalks. Children hunt dragonflies in the fields using long poles called kayu panjang (kayu is wood or tree and panjang long), the ends smeared with sticky sap as a trap. They pull the wings off, pierce the dragonfly bodies live on a stick, roast and eat them. At home, the bodies are grilled or deep-fried in coconut oil with spices and vegetables.
The villagers of Tengkudak in Tabanan regency, near Mt Batukaru, like everything emanating from the rice fields, from grasshoppers to dragonflies, eels and live baby bees. These villagers also have their own “dragonfly with cassava” recipe called Rempeyek (cracker) capung (dragonfly). The dragonflies are captured in the rice fields using a three-tiered device. A long, firm coconut leaf spine is inserted into a bamboo tube handle and sticky sap collected from a jackfruit or frangipani tree is smeared on the tip. The flying prey become irrevocably fixed to the sap of the magical hunting wand when they touch it. Many more practical Balinese sidestep the hard-to-make bamboo handle and substitute a large easy-to-obtain banana leaf spine instead. They attach the coconut leaf spine to the top of the banana leaf spine with sticky sap, thus attaining the desired sky-level height to catch dragonflies on the wing. The banana leaf handle is simply thrown away afterwards. Utilizing only the bodies, not the wings, the requisitioned dragonflies are crushed using a stone mortar (batu base) and pestle, while their co-ingredient, cassava, is scraped