Bumi Bali Cooking School

This is Tuna Sambal Matah (Tuna with Raw Seasoning) which is a lot more delicious, mild and sweet, than you may think.  It was one of the dishes we learnt how to make at the cooking class run by the Bumi Bali Restaurant on Monkey Forest Road yesterday.

First, our chef Ketut (fourth born son), walked us up to the fresh food market on Ubud's main street.  We had to take a little detour on the way because the laneway was blocked by all the preparations being made for a cremation ceremony outside a family compound.

Although I use fresh ginger in my cooking at home all the time I never realised how beautiful the stalk and flower of the ginger plant are.

Ketut explained to us all about the ingredients we would be using in the dishes that were to be prepared at cooking school.  Quite a few of the familiar ingredients: cucumber, spinach, shallots, saffron, even garlic, looked quite different in Bali, and are more intensely flavoured apparently!  Here he is explaining all the dry ingredients we'll be using.

Small and big galangal have different flavours I discovered.

This young (Belgian) girl in our class made very slow work of grating fresh coconut for Sayur Urab (Mixed Vegetables), but she looked good doing it.

By this stage we've learnt how to make Base Gede (a wonderful Balinese curry paste that is used as the basis for a lot of different dishes) and Ketut is putting the finishing touches to Sayur Urab.

There is quite an art to twisting the pork mixture onto the bamboo sticks for Bali Sate Lilit.

As well as preparing Opor Ayam (Curried Chicken) and Tempe Manis (Sweet Tempe - yum!) Ketut finished off by showing us a simple dish he learnt from his mother, a curried prawn dish - wonderful.  By now the class had gone well over time but everybody was kept sparkling by rounds of Bintangs and a rice wine cocktail for everybody.  We finished off with my favourite black rice pudding, one of the best I have ever eaten in Bali. This was a GREAT cooking class!

I feel quite callous in admitting that while I was having so much fun Rob was having to try out the health care system here in Ubud.  The cold he had developed after arriving here turned bad yesterday morning.  He did find the service at the local Klinik Dharma Usada extremely thorough and professional.  We were both impressed that the antibiotics and cough medicines dispensed directly by the doctor were so beautifully packaged. 

After sleeping most of the afternoon he was starting to feel well enough to go out last night to dinner at the ARMA (Agung Rai Museum of Art) Restaurant and the Kecuk dance performance in the beautiful grounds of ARMA.  Although we have seen the spectacular Kecuk dance a number of times before this was going to be a very special one in celebration of the new moon.

It was an amazing and heartstopping interpretation of this story from the Hindu Ramayama epic.  There were no women performing, and instead of the fire walking that usually happens at the end, after all the trance like chanting, this time they staged an awesome and rather frightening (though choreographed) "ball game" with balls of fire and lampsticks, involving all the participants, which included a large number of children.  There were flames popping up everywhere and swirling all over the performance space.

This manic monkey character jumped down amongst the audience at one stage and presented me with a little bunch of carefully arranged flowers.  It was a moment of great incongruity.  I'm just glad he didn't invite me to join in the fire throwing game.