Balinese food and Balinese kitchens

    Madek, our homestay host, invited us over one day to his family compound. He took me into the kitchen where his Mum routinely makes meals for ten people. It was the simplest of stoves, a wood-fired oven over which sat pots and saucepans. As I've found travelling elsewhere in Asia, good food is more about working with fresh ingredients than elaborate equipment.

   One of our first Balinese meals was beside the road on the way to Ubud, at a little warung--a simple restaurant--that specialized in nasi goreng. Preparations began with the whack-whack of a cleaver that reduced lots of garlic to a pulp. Then an egg was fried in sizzling oil, then chicken and small shrimp. Already cooked rice went into the pan, then spices and seasonings.

It cost less than a dollar a plate.

Time and again, Peter and I went back to this little spot on a side street in Ubud. On our first visit, I'd ordered what was listed as "Chinese omelette." Through an oblong hole in the wall, we could hear and smell it being made, a big crispy-edged pancake filled with bean sprouts, shredded carrot and cabbage, egg and little bits of chicken. Utterly delicious. It's usually topped with a dollop of sweet chili sauce but it's better if you ask for that to be served on the side. Cold ginger tea goes well with it.

Another memorable meal--and again one at a simple little restaurant, on the day we drove to see a volcano, and its nearby lake. The freshest of fish grilled with loads of shallots on top, a stunningly hot sambal on the side (that red stuff). It came with bowls of rice and fish soup.

A fisherman on the lake catching our lunch.

Another Indonesian specialty, gado gado is basically mixed vegetables with a gently spicy peanut sauce either served over it, or with it for dipping purposes. Those brown looks-like-cake slices at eight o'clock are tempeh, a soy product that originated in Indonesia. That's tofu at nine o'clock for comparison. I became strangely addicted to tempeh, which is nutty and firm-textured.

   Mainly because of the heat, our meat consumption dropped considerably while we were in Ubud--except on the days when we ate at the roast pig place at the end of the street. This is a Balinese specialty: whole pigs stuffed with lemongrass, ginger, and all manner of other spices. This shot of the menu shows you a couple of options. The one at the bottom is just a plateful of pork crackling.

We usually ordered the mix of meat and pork skin, which came with plain steamed rice, and a savagely spicy sambal to go with it.
     Finally, two of our favourite places.

"Let's meet at the place round the corner from the Internet place across from where we take the laundry."
That's here.

And this is Rumah Roda, an upstairs restaurant that's part of a family compound, which serves authentic and wonderful Balinese food. Sunday night, there's a buffet where you can serve yourself to dishes that you just don't see anywhere else. Because it has wifi, people often settle in here for hours at a time, or sit and gaze out at what's happening on the street. Everyone in this large extended family is hugely friendly and, if you want to find out more about them and everyday life in Bali, they feature in the terrific "A Little Bit One O'Clock" by locally-based author William Ingram.

   If you want to whet your appetite, the web site at http://www.rumahroda.com/ lists all the items on the buffet, introduces you to the family, shows you the rooms you can stay in and tells you a bit more about the book.

   And I almost forgot to tell you that Rumah Roda makes the most sublime banana pancakes, topped with shredded fresh coconut and lime juice. The tempeh curry is good too. 

Bali Damp and Humidity

     You could call Bali "the emerald isle", and it's overwhelmingly green for the same reason that Ireland is.
     Rain.
     We were there in the rainy season but had no idea of just how forceful these tropical downpours could be until the morning after we arrived.

     Those big silvery blobs are big blobby raindrops. Within days we invested in blue plastic ponchos with hoods. Not glamorous but they covered us from the tops of our heads to mid-calf. Plastic flip-flops--those trendy Havaianas that cost around $30 in North America and $5 in Asia--took care of our feet. .

Constant damp means vividly green moss and ferns grow everywhere.

  We experienced spectacular thunderstorms. The best one began while we were finishing supper in a little roadside warung in Ubud. The humidity had built to uncomfortable levels over the past couple of days and, apart from small showers at night, we hadn't seen any rain. This was amazing--and amazingly beautiful. We stood at the edge of the warung watching for close to half an hour.
   Lightning lit up the sky right across our vision, a lavender-bright light that revealed dark shapes of family temples and palm trees, as inky-black as shadow puppets. Car headlights showed the force of the rain, like thousands of pewter strings. Rain rushed down the street, filling the gutters level with the sidewalks.
   But all this sopping wet air does have its positive side. Constant moisture and heat combined act like a steam iron on clothes. Creases immediately dropped out of linen. We looked elegant, if sweaty

    The climate also encourages things to grow at ferocious speed. One morning, I walked down the little laneway from our homestay to find that overnight these tiny mushrooms had sprouted all over the wall.
   

     A "homestay" by the way is what, in the rest of Asia, you'd call a guesthouse. Balinese families traditionally live communally in a walled compound, grandparents, brothers, sisters, kids, family temples, dogs, chickens all together. The owner and his wife lived on the premises of our homestay in Ubud; their family compound was a few steps down the road.
     We rented two rooms, each with a large terrace, which is where we were served breakfast each day.

   And every day it was the same, with variations: a bowl of at least three kinds of fruit--pineapple, melon, banana, rambutan, and others whose names I didn't know. Alongside were eggs either scrambled, fried, made into omelettes, boiled in the shell, or boiled, unshelled and sandwiched between the toast that also showed up each morning. The sambal, that mix of runner beans, tomato and cucumber was lightly spiced.
     Next....a food post.

Back in action!

     Sorry about that three-month gap. Although it's more than four weeks since we flew back to France, there are all sorts of reasons why I haven't been blogging. A streaming cold, jet lag (I'm over both now) and the need to get some kind of handle on a garden that had turned into a jungle--as it always does--in our absence. Anyway, those are my excuses and I'm sticking to them.
     So, a très vite recap...
     On January 9, we flew from Toulouse to Amsterdam to Singapore to Denpasar, Bali's main airport. Long-haul? Oh yes, indeed. Kate (our daughter) had arrived there two months earlier so she knew the system when her definitely tired parents fell off the plane into 30 degree temperatures and what felt like 100 percent humidity.
     She whisked us into a "meter" taxi and soon had us checked into a hotel. Before long, we were sipping what would be the first of many Bintangs, the fave beer in Indonesia.
    We'd landed in the heart of surfing 'n T-shirt 'n beads 'n incense country. "You won't like it here. It's full of drunken Aussies." So the next morning, Wayan, a driver Kate knew took us an hour or so north through increasingly jungly conditions to the town of Ubud.

      If you've seen/read the Eat, Pray, Love movie/book, you know what Ubud looks like.... or at least its rice fields.
      Now I've got you safely to Bali, read on....

How to cook duck magret.

       Since coming to France, we've become huge gluttons for magret de canard, the huge duck breasts that are a delicious by-product of the ducks raised for foie gras.
       In the summer, you can grill magrets outdoors. This time of year, I pan-fry them, scoring their fat first in a criss-cross pattern, and seasoning it with salt and pepper. Into a hot frypan, skin side down. After about six minutes, the magret will have released buckets of melted fat. Pour it off into a jar or, even easier, siphon it off with a turkey baster. Turn the magret over, cover the pan and let it keep cooking for another couple of minutes. About eight minutes in total gives you medium-rare results.
      Move it to a warm plate, and tent it with foil, then carve in thick slices. We find one magret is enough for the two of us. Trust me, it's better than steak.
     Magret is fantastic with sliced par-boiled potatoes fried in duck fat, or with a gutsily-dressed salad of roquette or frisée, with hunks of baguette as the starch component.
      The other night I cooked Puy lentils for 25 minutes, then mixed in chopped onion, garlic, carrot and celery that I'd sautéed till soft in butter.

     The sauce on the side is simply some homemade plum chutney warmed up in a pan. You need something to balance the richness of the duck.

An evil goat, red berries and other New Year snapshots.

    In The City of Falling Angels, his excellent book about Venice, author John Berendt describes how he once set out to take a photograph every minute as he walked around Venice and found he couldn't find anything that wasn't beautiful.  
    So, a few days ago on a sunny and warm-for-January afternoon, we set out for our usual little saunter along the river bank out to the edge of the village, along past the chateau, and back through the streets. Right, I thought, I'll see if I can do a Berendt, snap away and see what happens.

With those satanic slit eyes, goats look inherently evil. This one was. As soon as I'd got him perfectly framed, he stared straight at me, squatted, smiled (I swear) and I don't have to tell you what he did next. 

I don't know the correct botanical name but, when I was growing up in the UK, we used to call these "spindleberries."

I love the lines and proportions of this farmhouse. See that central archway? I imagine more than a few horses and carts have passed through it in their time.

A cathedral of plane trees, long late afternoon shadows and the prospect of a pot of tea and a slice of pain d'épice when we get home. Makes me happy.
    

A Look back at 2011...September to December

September

    Because what was meant to be the final Marché Gourmand had been rained out, we got a bonus one at the start of September

 Here we all are trooping through the streets to the outskirts of the village...

...to watch the fireworks.

    September is the beginning of the hunting, gathering and preserving season. Windfall pears and plums made a year's worth of chutney.
    This is probably the best month to visit--and we had friends around for almost the entire month. Lots of candle-lit dinners outside, much popping of corks, loads of fun, and many days out.

 On this particular day, we drove east to the Canal du Midi, and then on to the ancient village of Minerve, which was besieged by Simon de Montfort in 1210.

Some of our friends even timed their trip so they wouldn't miss the annual hazelnut festival in Lavelanet.

 The big lunch always takes place in the halles that are normally home to part of the Friday market.

And the first course is always an indecently large serving of foie gras.

Meanwhile, very large quantities of meat roast on a spit...

 Foie gras out of the way, you line up outside for your portion, return to your table (where you find big pots of the local version of cassoulet) and continue eating and drinking. Pace yourself. There's still cheese, dessert, bottles of bubbly and coffee to come.

A member of the confrérie in official garb. I'm a member too but, so far, all I have is a small scarf and a medallion.

October

   One week in Paris hadn't been enough so, in October, we went there for two, staying in a couple of different apartments.

 Here's the view from the first one we stayed in on the top floor. I suspect it had originally been a maid's room.

  And here's the elevator/lift that took us there. You know those spiral stairways that wind round and round and round (often seen in European films with someone chasing someone else down them)? Well, in this apartment building, there was just room--but only just--to retrofit the smallest elevator imaginable in between the banisters. I'm not exaggerating. All you could shoehorn into it was one person and one piece of modestly-sized luggage.
  Our first weekend in Paris coincided with the fête des vendanges in Montmartre, which celebrates the harvest of locally-grown grapes.

As with any festival, there was plenty to eat, and even more to drink.

 October can be a wicked month for weather. It was raining chats et chiens a few days later so we scuttled over to the Musée des Arts et Métiers, the closest place to escape the downpour.

What we hadn't anticipated were the incredibly beautiful scientific instruments on display.

 Back in Léran, we watched the transhumance, the movement of flocks or, in this case, a herd, from their summer pasturage in the mountains to lower ground, part of the village's first foire agriculturelle.

November 

    A month of walks and a day of remembrance.

 The start of one of the walks we take most often begins with this "cathedral" of plane trees that passes past the grounds of the chateau.

 Soon after, you get a fantastic view of the village--and a sense of how it's surrounded by green--and the mountains.

 This time of year, you're really conscious of the continuity of the seasons, of how new growth like this will be ploughed under come spring to feed next year's crops.

And how the remains of the harvest are also dug back into the earth to feed it. Cattle make their own contribution.

    Remembrance Day in France is marked with great solemnity in every community, and by everyone, however young they are.

 The littlest kids of Léran sang the Marseillaise and later laid their posies and bouquets on the war memorial,

 The firefighters from Laroque d'Olmes were there too.

Our mayor made a speech and then named every one of the 44 soldiers from the village who had died during the first World War, and those who had fallen in the second. After each name was read, an elderly former combatant intoned "mort pour la France" -- "died for France." Wreaths and posies were set around the memorial and then...

...courtesy of the mairie, kids, firefighters, everyone, we all trooped into the village hall for aperos and snacks.

December

Another walk, this time about half an hour's drive from Léran, just east of Lavelanet, at the village of Roquefixade, which is dominated by a vast cliff and a ruined chateau. 

    Scenery around here is jaw-droppingly magnificent with wave upon wave of mountains stretching to the horizon.
     Christmas was coming. Our village choir sang indoors in Mirepoix cathedral, and outside in one of the village's squares.

      Supermarkets were groaning with foie gras, oysters, champagne and all the other necessities for a traditional French Christmas. I really, truly, deeply loved this arc des oignons (and other alliums) in Carrefour in Pamiers.

Now we're into 2012. Hope this past year was as good as ours. A belated Happy New Year to everyone. May you live long and prosper.