Balinese presentation. It is sacred work and ritualized worship. The gods cook here for all the world to see.
Recipe courtesy of Cok Oka Derana, Guwang village, Gianyar, Bali, 2008. Cok Oka, a Satria caste prince, works as a bellboy at the Inna Kuta Beach Hotel, Kuta. His brother, Cok Raka, is a woodcarver-artist and maintains an impressive local art gallery in their home compound in Guwang. A happy, always smiling ambassador of his beloved island, Cok Oka is dedicated to promoting and preserving native Balinese culture, ceremonies and traditions.
11 oz (300 g) good quality pork
11 oz (300 g) pork skin
1 bowl pig’s blood
11 oz (300 g) long green beans
½ piece young jackfruit
1¼ lb (600 g) shallots
11 oz (300 g) garlic cloves
½ coconut
small amount of coconut milk with spices (kalas)
11 oz (300 g) chilies
½ piece white ginger and ½ piece yellow ginger
½ package very hot small peppers (merica)
lemongrass
shrimp paste
¼ tsp lesser galangal
black and white pepper and salt to taste
brown sugar to taste
First, prepare the bumbu or spice paste mixture. Peel and slice the shallots, half the garlic cloves and the white ginger, then fry. Complete the bumbu mixture with finely minced fried chilies, fried shrimp paste, brown sugar, black pepper, white pepper and salt. Grind all the above ingredients to a fine powder.
Boil the sliced pork skin, young jackfruit and long beans. Use ¾ of the young coconut, grated. Use the rest of the coconut—preferably half a coconut—for kalas (coconut milk with spices) for lawar jukut (vegetarian lawar) or for lawar putih (white lawar). Mix the coconut with blood to make it red, then grill (burn) the coconut. Add sugar. Peanut leaf or other vegetables can be added to the pork lawar according to preference.
Prepare the pork meat by chopping it into very small particles until smooth. Grill the meat first. Add some bumbu, terasi, salt, brown sugar, hot chilies and finely sliced pandanus leaves. Mix together. Make the mixture flat and level.
Crackling, sliced pork skin (kulit babi)—good color skin.
Fry garlic and add one whole white onion, already sliced.
Grind and add small black and white peppers (tabia merica). Mix the result together into a powder—a dry grind. Cut an old (brown) kelapa (coconut) in half. Grill (burn) it first. Slice the coconut. Add the burnt coconut.
In order to make the lawar the religiously required red color, add the raw blood to the sliced coconut. Use real fresh blood from the pig. The fresh blood becomes hard after only ten minutes. When you want to use the blood for the lawar, it must be blended with lemongrass to make it soft again—the consistency of red water. Mix hot coconut oil into the blood, and then mix it together with the meat, sauce and coconut. Add a squeeze of lime for fragrance.
Taste the lawar mixture to test the balance of sweet and salt levels. Adjust to taste.
This lawar recipe can be used to make lawar jukut (vegetarian lawar). Simply omit the pork meat, blood, skin and by-products. Add yellow ginger to turn the lawar a yellow color and add young burnt taro and peanuts. Add kalas, made by mixing coconut milk with bumbu (spice paste) and boiling to a temperature of 80 degrees centigrade.
Various other important side dishes are usually prepared as an offshoot of the effort and number of ingredients involved in making lawar. A meat version of kalas is ordinarily prepared as a spin-off. Boil the kalas (coconut milk with spices) with pork meat and mix with long green beans. Delicious pork meat sausages (urutan) are always made on the side from the rich extra supply of pork meat available on these ceremonial occasions.
The lawar is transferred to a pan. The same recipe can also be prepared as lawar putih —white lawar without blood.
Serves 4–6.
Jukut Ares
(YOUNG BANANA TREE TRUNK IN SPICY SOUP)
Ares is a Balinese stew made from young banana stalks and chicken or other meats. Banana trunk (the tender heart of the banana tree stem) may admittedly be hard to find, but it’s worth enquiring at specialty Asian stores. The flavor of banana trunk is similar to celery.
Ni Wayan Murni is the successful owner and creator of internationally famous Murni’s Warung (the first real Western-style restaurant in Ubud, opened in 1974), Murni’s Warung Gift Shop, Murni’s Houses, the Tamarind Spa in Murni’s Houses, Murni’s Villas and the treasure-filled Kunang-Kunang I and Kunang-Kunang II antique shops in Ubud. Murni’s prestigious, well-trafficked network of Ubud businesses has attracted many decades worth of annual customers, friends and repeat food-loving clientele. Her extensive, culturally oriented website empire, www.murnis.com, is a leading online resource center for all things Balinese.
Recipe courtesy of Ni Wayan Murni, Murni’s Warung, Campuhan-Ubud, Bali, 2006.
10 shallots
2 garlic cloves
10 red chilies
5 hot chilies
4 candlenuts
1 tsp coriander seed
1 tsp cumin seed
½ tsp grated nutmeg
½ tsp lesser galangal
½ tsp white pepper
1½ in (4 cm) lemongrass leaf
1 tsp shrimp paste
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp salt to taste
3 tsp vegetable oil
4½ lb (2 kg) banana trunk, finely sliced
8 cups chicken stock made from 2 tsp Masoko chicken powder or 2 crumbled chicken stock cubes
Place the spices in a blender and pulse until reduced to a smooth paste or, for a better taste, grind with a mortar and pestle. Add a little water, if necessary.
Fry the paste in vegetable oil for a few minutes, taking care not to scorch it.
Add the sliced banana trunk and stir fry until the banana wilts.
Add the chicken stock and gently simmer until the banana trunk is tender.
Serves 4–6.
Lawar Capung
(DRAGONFLY LAWAR)
Lawar
