Learning Balinese Cooking From Paon Bali
What’s Balinese cuisine?
It’s a good thing you asked…
Paon Bali Cooking Class tl;dr
- Balinese Cooking Culture
- Prep Ingredients
- Cook Dishes First Hand
Finally the cooking class of the hour, Paon Bali Cooking! We did the market shopping. We got to meet both Puspa and Wayan. Now we’re going to get into the nitty gritty and learn as much as we can absorb about Balinese cooking.
I hope I brought a pen and pad to write this all down.
What She Taught Us
Puspa brought us all around her home and explained everything:
- Ingredients
- Equipment
- Culture / History
- Cooking Technique
She explained that if certain ingredients weren’t available where we came from, she suggested suitable more widely available substitutes like ginger for galangal. While the 2 ingredients are related, they aren’t quite the same; anyone familiar with galangal will notice the difference.
Puspa demonstrated the usage of a large mortar and pistil. While not nearly as fast as a food processor, there’s a certain je ne sais qua, a rugged mouthfeel to the pounded ingredients that modern technology has a hard time replicating.
What We Did
We went followed along during her lessons and tried our best at replicated whatever technique we could remember watching her perform. Puspa and Wayan would walk around checking on our progress from time to time, offering pointers or simply encouraging us along. I learned a lot of things that were done manually:
- Pounding ingredients
- Grinding ingredients
- Frying techniques
Ultimately we cooked our dishes and ate them. The food was, if I don’t say so myself, very good.
Are There Advanced Courses?
I wonder if she does do advanced classes or if she can do a one off ad hoc class type of thing. I’d be interested in learning new things; new techniques, new ingredients, and new dishes. Judging from their website, there doesn’t seem to be different classes. I’m sure they could.
Either which way, their cookbook outlining what we cooked, will have to answer any of my Balinese cravings.
