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The Balinese Kitchen
Simple yet sophisticated cooking: a practical marriage of ancient and modern

Despite the complex blending of spices and fragrant foots that gives Balinese food its intriguingly different flavor, the typical Balinese kitchen is remarkably simple. The centerpiece of the kitchen-generally a spartan, functional room is the wood-fired stove topped by a blackened clay pot used to steam rice and leaf-wrapped food. In many modern households, this is joined by a gas stove for boiling water and frying. Both stoves receive daily offerings of a few grains of rice, a flower and salt - a gift to Brahma, the animistic god of fire.

Although all utensils were once made of clay, most cooks now use metal for cooking. Many people in the major towns also use electric rice cookers, but most agree that the traditional method for cooking rice is superior. After the rice has been well washed and soaked, it is partially boiled, then set in a woven steaming basket (kukusan) over a clay pot filled with boiling water. The conical kukusan is covered with a clay lid and the rice left to steam. Every so often, boiling water is scooped out of the clay pot and poured over the rice to keep it moist and prevent the grains from sticking together.

Bamboo is often used in the Balinese kitchen. A narrow bamboo tube is use to direct a puff of air into the fire, acting as a bellows. A spilt length of bamboo plaited so that it fans out is used as a scoop for lifting out and draining fried food, while bamboo handles with small coconut shells on the end make scoops or ladles.

Every Balinese kitchen has its coconut scraper, either a wooden board wet with rows of sharp metal spikes or a sheet of thin aluminum with spikes punched out. Grated coconut is mixed into many dishes, or squeezed with water to make coconut milk.

Another essential item is the saucer-like stone mortar (batu basa) used for grinding dry spices, chilies, shallots, and other seasonings. The Balinese mortar is shallow and the stone pestle has a handle carved at right angles to head so that the actin is one of grinding rather than pounding.

The chopping block used in the preparation of almost every meal is usually a cross section slice of a tree trunk, the wood strong enough to take the repeated blows of a sharp cleaver used to mince meat of fish to a paste. And for chopping and slicing various roots and vegetables.

The furniture in Balinese kitchen is minimal; apart from the stove, a bench and a food cupboard, where the cooked food is stored during the day, there's usually a wide, low bamboo platform, used for sitting on while preparing foods. It also doubles as an eating area or a spare bed. Practicality is the theme on any Balinese kitchen.

Copyright by The Food of Bali, Authentic Recipes from the Island of the Gods

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