Cooking in Bali...

One of my favourite things to do when going to a place with a completely different culture is to eat as much of the local food as I can.  Indonesian staple diet is Nasi Goreng, a rice dish and I had that frequently - and loved it.

I never thought I would actually want to cook on holiday but my DIL and I did exactly that...

We started with a tour in a fruit and vegetable market....

 Those long beans are called snake beans and can get up to a metre long.... I would need one bean for a meal!!

I don't remember all the herbs...

.. one sweet old dear insisted we have some flowers in our hair, the most delicious scented jasmine

... chilli's feature alot in Indonesian food....

... chopping knives, (the one regret I have is not buying one of the knives)

... trying exotic fruit ... this is Rambutan, which tastes very like lychee.

... in the vehicle on the way to the cooking class we stopped off at a paddy field and had a bit of a chat about the family ownership of these....

... our teacher for the day.. what a character and runs it so well...

.. this is the outlook of the kitchen/dining area.... how wonderful.....

... lots of grinding of nuts, herbs and spices....

... and lots of chopping too....

.. using the special Bali blender.....

works well.... though I might stick to the one you just push the button on!

... all our ingredients ready to start the cooking

It was DIL's birthday .... she chose to spend it with me in the kitchen!!!

cooking up the pastes for flavouring... smelt amazing

... we both had turns ....

... we made mushroom soup for starter.... it was very good...

... cooking the satay chicken on the Bali BBQ - using coconut husks which keep nice and hot and little smoke...

.. the view from my dining seat....

.. our table of mains.... tuna in the front there... snake bean and cocunut salad in the middle and chicken satay on the sticks...

... my plateful... I might have gone back for seconds (!!!).  There is also a chicken curry, gado gado (mixed vegetables) and Tempe Kering (my favourite)

... a closer look at Gado Gado (it has cabbage, beans, bean sprouts, tofu and cucumber and is served with a peanut sauce) - very yum

.. for desert there was cooked banana and jackfruit served with coconut cream....

Delicious way to spend a day....

Righto, Gotto Go... I need to source some ingredients I think (we were provided with recipes which also give alternatives to some of the ingredients.