Indonesian cooking

I hadn't expected to like Indonesian food as much as I did - how could I have, I had no idea what it was like never having tasted it! But since day one it officially replaced Thai cuisine as my top number one favourite! It's quite different to other Southeast Asian food in terms of flavours and presentation I thought. What I like about it is that it has huge regional differences and whilst dishes are similar they're never the same anywhere. Each cook adds their own touch to the dish. During my stay in Indonesia I had barely any meat. The vegetables they use are abundant and varied, and the flavours blend so nicely there's really no need for meat. My number one favourite dish was Gado-Gado, consisting of boiled or steamed vegetables (spinach, sprouts, potato, cabbage, string bean), fried tofu and tempeh (soy bean bread), boiled egg, and peanut sauce. And in every place it tasted different so you could easily eat it several times a week without getting bored of it.

Olah-Olah is another dish I will be sampling at home reminiscing the meals I had on the beach eating this vegetable curry cooked with coconut milk and Indonesian fresh spices. And from now on the only acceptable dip anytime anywhere is Sambal, which is a tomato based chilli dip that just goes well with everything.

Because I was enjoying Indonesian cooking so much I decided to sign up for a cooking course so I could get some of the basics down taught to me first hand by an experienced native chef.

The course I chose was Lobong Cooking Experience and I chose it based on the five out of five stars it had on Trip Advisor (what would I do without good old TA?¿?)

The half day experience included a visit to the local market, cooking of nine traditional dishes, lots of explanations of the origins of the foods and spices, and a cookbooklet to bring home with us. The course was held at their family compound. Balinese people live in compounds that are like little houses grouped together, and are homes to the family members. They all face the sacred volcano Gunung Agung. Each compound has a temple, sleeping areas, socialising areas, kitchen, and bathrooms. New structures are added as the family grows - the bride almost always moves into the groom's family compound. In this compound there were 19 of them living together, which is considered rather small..! It was a stunning place, lots of space and greenery around,very quiet and peaceful.

The way Balinese normally eat is that lots of food is cooked first thing in the morning for the entire family and everyone helps themselves throughout the day whenever they're hungry. So what we were cooking on our cour was ceremonial food more than anything, not something the Balinese would whip up on an ordinary day.

The visit tothe market in the morning was interesting. It was a very authentic place with no other tourists around. I always think it is wonderful to see the side that's not been adapted for tourists, to really see the authentic side of things. It was pouring down with rain so the market was unusually busy as everyone was trying to cram inside. It was good fun to learn about the various foods, spices, and utensils. On interesting observation was that nothing had a price tag, but rather if you wanted something you had to negotiate the price, every single time.

After the market we went to the family compound and cooked and cooked and cooked! I got confused with so many dishes being cooked and prepared at the same time and wasn't sure what dish I was working on at any timeout since I was mostly keen on learning how to make the peanut sauce and Sambal I tried tray extra attention to those. Indonesian cooking is extremely healthy, they don't use any of the sauces Chinese and Thai cuisines do that may not be good for you, like oyster, soy, sweet and sour, etc. No MSG here! Just lots of shallots (hardly ever onion), chilli (mmm yum...), and LOTS of garlic (MMMMM YUM...!). a lot of the skills I learned I realised I could apply to my own cooking, they're very basic details that can add a lot of flavour - even if you're only planning to pan fry some chicken for dinner. Simple easy ways to marinade the chicken so that it ain't quite as plain. Whilst not very complicated, Balinese cooking was certainly time consuming so I won't be cooking this every day that's for sure.... Or perhaps I will, it's not like ill have a job to go to when I go back! It was a beautiful day, and here are some of the things we cooked: