Cooking, Balinese Style

Here is the second half of our culinary experience at Lobong (the first being the market tour).  My second time taking this class was not a disappointment- just as interesting, hands-on and delicious as last time!  Pretty sure Martha enjoyed it, too... asking lots of questions, learning about life on Bali...

As we did last time I cooked here, we got to see Pak Sang Made's mother making the coconut oil from fresh coconuts, as she does weekly:

Our mise en place, including chilis, shallots and garlic (the Indonesian holy trinity), fresh galangal and turmeric root, peanuts, lemongrass, tomato, ginger, tamarind, and long beans, among other fresh ingredients:

Martha implements her signature hand gesture in case anyone was planning to take a photo during the initial ingredient explanation by the Chef:

Teacher's pet helps out with the very involved, multi-step, over-a-wood-fire Balinese rice making process (this is not just tossing the rice and water into the rice cooker, my friends):

Chopping the holy trinity... look at those knife skillz:

Chef explaining the importance of and ingredients in the essential Balinese spice paste, the base gede:

Martha's responsibility was the curry sauce for the chicken, and she took it very seriously:

Mine was the peanut sauce:

Martha using the mush-and-twist method of getting the spiced minced chicken sate onto the skewer for sate lilit ayam:

And Pak Sang Made helping out with the grilling of said sate... smoking up the whole place:

Dessert time... a Balinese crepe filled with a delicious palm sugar and coconut filling:

And the finished products!  Sate lilit ayam and peanut sauce (base sate):

Kare ayam (braised chicken leg in coconut curry sauce) and dadar gulung (Balinese crepe filled with palm sugar syrup and grated coconut): 

Jukut urab (mixed veggies [fern tips, long beans, red beans] salad with grated coconut and garlic chili dressing) and sambal ulek (tomato and chili sambal):

Balinese rice with sweet potato and fried shallots:

Martha admiring our work:

But before we eat, an offering/cangansari must be made:

Pak Sang Made's mother is in charge of the offerings, which are placed all around the family compound several times a day:

After the offering, our meal was plated (pretty fancily, I might add) and we got to eat... all of it was pretty awesome, but I am partial to the salad, the sambal and the sate: