The island of the gods pulsates with chickens, roosters, hens,
and miniature trains of fluffy, insouciant chicks raised and
husbanded as self-renewing sources of meat, eggs, and sacrificial
offerings. Bali’s athletic village chickens (ayam kampung)
are free range--literally--they run, cluck, and drop feathers
all over every ancient family compound and meticulously broom-swept
Balinese yard. Highly preferred, natural “local chickens”
are smaller, thinner, tougher, bonier, tastier, less fatty,
and healthier than western, battery-produced broiler chickens.
Tethered up in vans or strapped across the handlebars of speeding
sepeda motor, frantic chickens rattle towards bustling village
markets. Flatbed pickup trucks deliver chickens door to door
(sold by weight) in more remote mountain regions like Pacung.
The chickens travel in stacked rows of metal wire cages fitted
to the length and breadth of the vehicle: the desired number
of specimens are taken out and placed in large round bamboo
baskets to be weighed on a primitive hanging scale and hook
at the rear of the vehicle, and then hand-carried by delivery
boys into the rear of the compound.
Home chickens abound, while small, family-run commercial egg
farms (combined with piggeries) cluster around the village
of Utu near Jatiluweh’s verdant rice terraces. Readily
available and cheap, eggs have inserted themselves deep into
the Balinese food chain. In the absence of refrigeration,
eggs do not last long at this hot, humid, tropical latitude.
Much kitchen effort is expended on treatments to preserve
them: one method (which turns the edible, unopened eggs jet
black) involves coating the shells with kitchen ashes, salt,
red cement, brick powder, and vinegar! Sparkling, creative
Balinese egg recipes include telor sambal kesuna (eggs in
coconut garlic dressing) and telor base lalah (chicken or
quail eggs in spiced tomato sauce—boiled, deep-fried,
and drenched in an oozy, thick simmered sauce of chicken spice
paste, shrimp paste, red chillies, bird’s eye chillies,
chicken stock, coconut cream, tomatoes, and lime juice). Eggs
also serve as fertility offerings—Balinese brides balance
a basket on their heads containing a shaved coconut, Chinese
kepeng coins, and an egg. This symbolic, potent wedding basket
is then secreted under the couple’s bed for forty-two
days (despite the pernicious, tenacious smell of decomposing
egg!).
Versatile chicken adapts easily to Balinese cooking methods,
dietary regimes, religious requirements, and budgets. Poultry
plays a quiet, dependable, non-signature role in such traditional
formats as sates, lawar, curries (kare ayam), coconut milk
dishes (ayam gecok is a soupy dish of grilled chicken with
roasted coconut milk), soups (calon be siap is Balinese-style
chicken bakso soup), and chicken stock (kuah siap), widely
used in a range of recipes. Chickens sacrificed as ritual
offerings are later cooked as ceremonial dishes: one of Bali’s
most well-known, traditional ritual recipes is ayam panggang
mesanten (roasted chicken with coconut sauce). Siap mepanggang
(grilled chicken) and siap megoreng (fried chicken) appear
in elaborate temple offerings and at traditional ceremonies.
Some chickens arrive on the Balinese table as a result of
armed warfare: cram cam, a clear chicken soup with shallots,
and ayam gerang asem, a slowly simmered, sour chicken stew,
are traditionally prepared after a cockfight, when the winner
receives the losing bird as a reward. Defeated, fallen heroes
from the local cockfights are also given to friends and neighbors
as food gifts.
As a subtle, yet vital, workaday part of Bali’s culinary
heritage, chickens shine in a stable group of seven classic
dishes. The chicken’s most famous incarnation on Bali
is as sate ayam, sold along every roadside and at every temple
festival and night market in Bali. Siap megoreng (fried chicken)
is served throughout Indonesia’s islands: Bali, of course,
spices up its spring chickens with aromatic chicken spice
paste, bird’s eye chillies, shallots, lemon grass, tomatoes,
palm sugar, garlic, black peppercorns, salam leaves, kaffir
lime leaves, chicken stock, coconut milk, rice flour, and
vegetable oil. Familiar, ordinary, charcoal-grilled poultry
(siap mepanggang) is dressed up with a rogue’s gallery
of sexy Balinese spices: chicken spice paste, black peppercorns,
lemon grass, salam leaves, bird’s eyes chillies, kaffir
lime leaves, chicken stock, and coconut cream. Similar to
Bali’s famous bebek betutu, ayam betutu is marinated,
massaged, rubbed, and impregnated with a racy medley of salt,
black peppercorns, shallots, garlic, turmeric, greater and
lesser galangal, candlenuts, bird’s eye chillies, red
chillies, lemon grass, palm sugar, oil, cassava leaves, and
salam leaves. Wrapped in several layers of banana stem and
interred in the ground to be smoke-roasted, it is served at
traditional odalan, otonan, and wedding ceremonies. Light,
fresh ayam pelalah (shredded chicken with chillies and lime)
is roasted and stuffed with black pepper, chicken spice paste,
salam leaves, lemon grass, and kaffir lime leaves, hand-shredded,
and tossed with spiced tomato sambal, lime juice, fried shallots,
and spice paste stuffing. Be siap base kalas (chicken in spices
and coconut milk) raises its hackles with a home-brew of simmered
chicken parts (thighs and legs), chicken spice paste, lemon
grass, salam leaf, kaffir lime leaf, coconut cream, chicken
stock, black peppercorns, and shallots. Ayam kampung (simple
Bali-style village chicken) is simmered in a rich spice paste
and chicken stock until tender.
The Bumbu Bali Restaurant in Ubud is a magical place to enjoy
authentic, Balinese, Indian, and vegetarian cuisine at the
tourist crossroads of Ubud opposite the royal Puri Saren Palace
(Jl. Suweta 1, tel. 974217, www.bumbubaliresto.com). The Bumbu
Bali is a rare, sensuous, serene sanctuary, where guests can
eat outdoors in exotic, thatched, alang-alang roofed garden
pavilions known as kubu (Balinese), or gubuk (Bahasa Indonesia).
A kubu is a small, traditional, bamboo, rice field shelter
that farmers use to eat or rest. (These structures were imported
from Madura, where they are used as beds.) Diners enjoy an
absolutely delicious, artfully displayed, customary Balinese
wanci platter of conical nasi kuning (yellow rice with turmeric,
peanut, and spiced coconut), lawar (ferns, egg, and green
beans with coconut and spices), and such traditional chicken
superstars as ayam pelalah, sate ayam, siap base kalas, and
opor ayam. Bumbu Bali also offers daily, culturally-oriented,
Balinese cooking classes: enthralled participants source ingredients
at Ubud’s traditional market, prepare seven phenomenal
Balinese dishes, and receive a souvenir recipe book and a
poleng-checked, kitchen apron of appreciation.
