Embedded deep in the heart of maritime Indonesia, (a tropical, equatorial archipelago of over 17,000 islands), the Balinese depend on fish (ikan) and seafood as a major source of food--especially those living on or near the coasts. Seasonal fresh fish (bonitos, small tunas, sardines, and mackerel) are readily available and relatively cheap compared to meat--providing simple, delicious meals for Balinese families. The Balinese grill and eat freshly killed fish immediately: available in the coastal markets and in the capital of Denpasar at the huge Pasar Badung, it is iced, salted, sold, and cooked within hours of being caught. On the north and east coasts of Bali, women from fishing villages line the sides of the roads sitting on the floor or behind makeshift wooden tables offering the day’s catch (big red snappers, tuna, and mackerel) to a continual noisy, vehicular customer stream on trucks and motorbikes. Owing to the limited availability of refrigeration--and of refrigerated trucks--inland markets sell these fish preserved in brine, dried, boiled in salted water, or salted for longer storage, like ikan teri (anchovy). (Teri are various kinds of small fish such as Japanese anchovy or white bait. Teri asin is dried salted anchovy.) Small whole sardines (pindang) boiled, packed in brine, and canned (pindang kucing) can keep for months (although the Balinese strongly prefer fresh rather than canned fish). Pindang is also a process for preparing eggs, meat, or fish using salt, tamarind juice, and other ingredients. When cooking fresh local pindang, the Balinese first boil the sardine in water until it no longer has any smell. Then they do a double cooking process (a technique typical of much Balinese food preparation)—frying or grilling it again before eating. Bandeng are salted milkfish prepared as above.
The Balinese usually purchase fresh, small, silvery four-inch-long fish (petite anchovies are popular) and eat them whole (rather than filet pieces cut from a large fish). Fish is favored because it can come in small portions, enabling the Balinese to consume it without wastage, and without having to slaughter and use up an entire pig or cow (usually reserved for ceremonies). Because fish can be cheaply processed and preserved for extended storage, dried or salted fish is available at almost all village markets. A popular Denpasar supermarket-department store, Tiara Dewata, stocks a broad variety of both fresh and dried fish for urban Balinese consumers: cotek, cumi-cumi bersih, cumi-cumi merah besar, rajungan, kodok batu, belanak, bandeng, belut, teri putih, lemujung, mujair, tongkol kecil (small tuna), kecap merah, cakalan, tribang (snapper with tail), layur, ikan bawal hitam, baronang, jangki merah (red snapper), kresi, krapu, kerang kukur (clams), kul nener (milkfish), and ketiping (crabs). Expensive sea, medium, and King prawns sold in the coastal markets and in Denpasar and are a rare treat for the Balinese.
Real, local, village fish dishes are very different from the more sophisticated seafood recipes, haute cuisine presentations, complex cooking methods, and types of fish presented in cookbooks and tourist restaurants. Authentic Balinese seafood cuisine is rooted in the home, and in farflung, seaside village warungs. The Balinese eat non-premier seafood species—relying mainly on mackerel, sardines, eel, and anchovies. Small accessory portions of sardines tossed in verdant tomato sauce, crisp, deep-fried baby eel, and sager--dried anchovies with coconut--are eaten at home with sambal, vegetables, and rice. Sager gerang is a sweet flavor feast of roasted coconut sambal with lime leaves, torch ginger bud, nutty mung beans, and spicy, roasted, ground, salted, dried anchovies (ikan bilis). These adventurous anchovy (setipinna taty) experiments are a magnificent, crunchy, lime-loving indigenous creation of the traditional, “women’s domain,” village kitchen. Seafood items on sale at the local market indicate what will be cooked in the village compound kitchen that day: chunks of fresh red tuna (tongkol), tiny gray shrimp, silvery pilchards, salted dried fish, ikan asin (salted, salty, or briny fish), ikan kembung (a small local salmon found in Lovina), and smoked sardines (pindang)--tightly packed and layered in tall square tins. Tiny, brown, rice field eels slither out of huge black market buckets trying to escape their fate—being sold by the plastic bag in 200 gram lots as a sambal or deep fried meal ingredient. Small, slimy, dark brown elvers (a young, small eel, especially a young conger or sea-eel) are a perennial Ubud market commodity, as they thrive in the muddy, layered, life-filled rice fields. The household ibu will steam tuna, mackerel, or whitebait in banana leaves, marinate it in sambal, grill or deep fry it till crisp, and then serve it with fresh chilli sauce and steamed rice. She will simmer the sardines with small, golden-brown potatoes, tomatoes, and sweet chilli. Lady sellers from beach and coastal areas bring in juicy, freshly-cooked, Balinese fish satay for extra variety.
