The distinctive, trademark flavor of Balinese cuisine is
governed by two separate, inviolable culinary institutions--the
use of sambal (meaning mixed, or more than one ingredient)
condiments and classic spice paste mixtures. Sambal--a super-scorching,
freshly made chilli sauce is put on and mixed into food right
after it is cooked. It is also served at every meal as a condiment
(on the side) should someone want to add extra sambal to make
their food hotter. Sambal keeps the home fires burning on
Bali: there are unlimited sambal combinations utilizing bright
red chillies, purple shallots, garlic cloves, shrimp paste,
sea salt, and oil as the basic building blocks. Fried and
cooked together, these magical staples become Bali’s
most important, multi-function seasoning, sambal goreng (fried
chilli sambal). Used by every family every day (usually for
vegetables), sambal goreng contains garlic, onion, shrimp
paste, and chilli: take a taste on the wild side and throw
in unearned exotica like roasted eel or pink, torch ginger
petals. Simple sambal sere (tabia) combines shrimp paste,
large and small ground chillies, and salt fried together and
served with a modicum of coconut oil. Sambal pelecing has
become so deeply engrained in the Balinese kitchen that it
has become a generic term for a way of cooking chicken and
vegetables. Finely chopped, roasted, rice field eel mixed
with purple shallots, chillies, and coconut oil is another
extremely popular Balinese sambal. Increasingly devilish,
avant-garde sambal concoctions include Bali’s famous,
naughty, naked sambal matah--the number one, and most beloved
sambal on Bali. Sambal matah is a raw, uncooked dressing composed
of chopped onion or shallots, garlic, small hot chillies,
terasi, kaffir lime, lemon grass, salt, and coconut oil (the
most important ingredient). It is a tongue-teasing seafood
mainstay at the string of grilled fish warungs guarding the
island’s culinary coastlines. Extravagant, “acquired
taste” sambals include stir-fried chilli with shrimp
paste, onion, garlic, bitter melon, and egg; complicated sambal
goreng hati (chicken liver sambal with sweet chilli and potatoes);
sambal tuwung (tomato-based, roasted eggplant sambal); sambal
tomat (spiced tomato sauce); and sambal khukus bongkot (steamed
torch ginger sambal). Saur (in Balinese and serunding in Bahasa
Indonesia) is fried shredded coconut with turmeric: it is
used in simple warung cooking as well as for ceremonies as
a condiment to sprinkle on top of rice.
Natural, dark brown, caramel-flavored palm sugar (gula merah
or gula Bali) is produced in backyards throughout Bali by
boiling juice (nectar) extracted from the unopened flower
bud of the majestic areca palm, sugar palm, or lontar palm
tree. Villagers also make palm sugar from the white inside
of the coconut tree trunk: boiled at medium heat, the emergent,
thick golden syrup is set and incubated inside a round coconut
shell or a tubular bamboo stalk for five days until it becomes
a hard, solid palm sugar block. Produced in Karangasem and
Klungkung regencies, they are typically vended in round or
cylindrical cakes in Bali’s markets (reflecting the
shapes of their host-moulds). Palm sugar can be made into
pourable, fluid, liquid palm sugar syrup (gula merah cair)
by boiling-simmering it in water for fifteen minutes (with
a pandanus leaf for extra flavor).
Chillies (tabia) are an essential, perennial ingredient in
Balinese cooking and are promiscuously used to turn up the
heat (before the arrival of chillies, the Balinese formerly
used gingers and pepper to fire up the kitchen). Traditional
markets and modern supermarkets are filled with descriptively,
and simply named cabe merah besar (big red chillies), cabe
merah kecil (tiny red chillies), cabe hijau besar (big green
chillies), and cabe hijau kecil (tiny green chillies). The
three most common varieties are tabia kerinyi, or bird’s
eye chillies (the tiniest, hottest, and most popular firebrand
in Bali), tabia Bali, otherwise called tabia biasa or cabe
(one-inch-long, fat, and hot, this medium-sized, red-yellow
devil packs a moderate punch for its size), and finger-length,
red tabia Lombok (larger, sweeter, and milder). Long pepper,
tabiabun lenge (bun means vine), is hot, sweet, and aromatic:
this tropical climbing plant is common in the villages. Carefree,
insouciant chilli bushes brazenly congregate in local front
yards--instigating and enabling the Balinese to use excessive,
sun-ripened, five alarm force for free. Local Balinese garlic
cloves (kesuna in Balinese, bawang putih in Bahasa Indonesia)
are sweeter, smaller, and milder than their Western counterparts.
Skin still on, they are deep fried and added (in a typically
Balinese double cooking process) to deep-fried coconut for
an extra flavor boost. Balinese shallots (bawang merah) are
very small, mild, purple-red onions and are a vital ingredient
in almost all Balinese recipes. The Balinese also use a lot
of strong, small local onions (believed to protect young children
from black magic). Miniature golden pieces of fried shallots
or onion (bawang goreng) are frequently added to dishes as
a garnish, including steamed rice. Popular herbs and leaves
like citrusy salam leaf (daun salam), a member of the myrtle
family, rule many culinary roosts: clean, forest-scented and
flavored salam leaves are thrown into the daily steamed rice
to add freshness and fragrance. Distinctive, scent-laden,
spear-like pandanus (screwpine) leaves (daun pandan harum)
are used to add (green) color, subtle scent, and a sweet flavor
to cakes and desserts and to enhance comforting cauldrons
of sticky steaming rice. Minutely shredded, worm-like, pandanus
leaf squiggles are a routine topping on offering baskets seen
and placed everywhere in god-conscious Bali.
