Cooking in Laplaplan Village

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During the last few days, we've had a lot of nice meals around Ubud and today I decided to have a peek inside one of the local kitchens by taking a cooking class.

I was picked up early at our house by a driver. There were already four people waiting on the small bus. Two English and two Australian girls. 

The English girls were blogging about fashion and the cooking class was a part of their next blog post. The Australians, however, had their minds focused on the food we were going to cook.

The first stop was the marketplace, and we arrived at 8 AM before the market turned into a tourist trap.

 
Choosing the ingredients

We saw flower stalls with all the multi-colored flowers intended for the gods if you were into do-it-yourself offerings. We saw spice shops, stalls selling vegetables, meat, basket ware, beans, and lentils - and the chauffeur, who doubled as the cook, demonstrated the use of the selected spices and fruits.


Flowers to the gods

The spices included turmeric, western ginger, local ginger, galangal, garlic, and lemongrass. We tasted dragon fruit, rambutan, sweet tiny bananas, and much more.

One of the English bloggers almost fainted because of the bad food smell and the visit to the market ended abruptly.

The cookery school was placed in a rice paddy field east of the city. Open thatched roofs covered the terraces with kitchen facilities.

 

View from the stove

We were about sixteen people from all over the world and as we were working,  the cook explained the taste and the use of herbs and vegetables.

Spices were crushed and made into purees after a good beating in a tall mortar.

One dish was a chicken roll, marinated and seasoned. We made a kind of salsa with some of the herbs and vegetables bought on the market.

My Swiss coworker

Another dish, pancakes, was made under the supervision of the head chef. There was only room for one cook at the time, the rest of us were watching.

The filling for the pancakes was made: coconut grated with molasses and a little lime.

Then the pans were warmed up and we took turns at the gas fire. The best of us were able to turn the pancakes in midair. I was not among the best!
 

The full menu

And then the finale: Enjoying our effort. The food was good, tasty, and very easy to make.
 

My humble contribution to the local gods

I paid 350.000 IDR for the experience and in addition had interesting conversations with Swiss, Dutch, Australian, English, and Swedish coworkers.

I think we got our money worth from the cooking class but actual learning and experimenting were not part of THIS package.

I still have to go to the local restaurants if I want to enjoy true Balinese cuisine.

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