Casa Luna cooking class, Ubud.

One of the things that was a must do in my eyes was to do a Balinese cooking class. A friend of mine has already gone to the Casa Luna cooking class and said good things, and when I did some research it seemed like this was a popular class with a good reputation. It was also only $33 each, which is a fraction of the cost of ANY class in Perth!

The school is set up by Janet de Neefe, here's part of the blurb from her book "Bali";

"26 years ago, a young woman from Melbourne travelled to Bali, and never quite made it back home. Janet De Neefe fell in love – with the people, the culture, the cuisine and since then, she has been collecting Balinese and Indonesian recipes, teaching local cooking methods and immersing herself in the colour and vibrancy of all that Balinese food has to offer."

Booking was pretty easy - I had an issue with my bank, but everyone I dealt with at Casa Luna was really friendly.

Each day they have a different class with a variety of different dishes, I had trouble choosing! But I chose the class where we made Balinese chicken satay, lawar, gado gado, beans in coconut milk, corn fritters and fragrant yellow rice.

Our teacher was bright, bubbly and had a great sense of humour. She introduced us to so many different ingredients, included info on how to use them, where to find them and what they taste like. We got a little booklet with all the recipes and I will be digging it out and trying them again!

We had to grind all the spices ourselves in big flat pestle and mortar, which took some doing! Everyone had a go, and then the pros took over so it wouldn't take us so long! The first thing that we made was a sweet and sour sauce that she put on cucumber, pineapple, and apple, which is a popular afternoon snack. However we all thought the sauce would have been amazing on ribs or anything that gets grilled, not fruit! Unless you grilled the fruit. That will be a thing. Grilled sweet and sour pineapple on a burger. Make a mental note of that! It was so simple as well, tamarind, palm sugar, chilli, and salt, its on the must make list!!

Here are some pics, they explain better than my words!

The food was great, my favourite was the lawar, it had great flavour, something different from a normal salad type dish that had the heartiness of meat with the light touch of fresh coconut and salad. Obviously the corn fritters were also great - its deep fried, so it goes without saying really! 

If you're in Bali I can recommend taking a trip out to Ubud to participate in one of these classes. They're fun, informative, and you get a belly full of delicious food at the end of it! 

Bali travels #1 - Ubud!

I'm home! Finally. I've been away for about 3 weeks and it's great to be home. I love travelling and I had a great time, but I'm stoked to be home to get back into a routine and home cooking again!

I'm not going to waffle on about the trip to Bali, I'll just let the photos do the talking!

We booked into Mozaic, Ubud for Christmas evening. We wanted to do something special, and this was it! It was a decadent meal full of fois gras (which I don't eat, but some do!), truffles and lobster. It was a lovely evening.

Ubud is a fabulous place to eat and we found some real gems. Naughty Nuri's Warung made some amazing ribs and chicken on a gnarly old grill. We ate there twice, and ate A LOT! They have a menu on the wall and that is it - if you ask for a menu, they just point to the wall. Don't go expecting amazing service, but DO go expecting awesome grilled stuff. We didn't bother ordering anything from the kitchen, we got our fill from the grill! Anthony Bourdain has been here and decided that the martinis are the best he's had outside of NYC. We tried one, they are ROCKET FUEL! I felt hammered after one. 

Ubud is also home to an amazing coffee house called Senimen - they have a massive range of coffee, and scientific methods of getting it from bean to cup! It's a fabulous brew. You can't miss this place if you enjoy coffee!! We had an iced latte on trip, and then an iced coffee the next time. Iced coffee is just that - cold coffee. They used the Sumatra Gayo Mountain beans, and it was gorgeous. There was so much more to it than it just being a cold black coffee. Try it.

Another spot to visit in Ubud is Ibu Oka, the warung made famous for its babi guling aka sucking pig. It came in a variety of forms, all tasty. We sat on the floor, ate pork, drank beer. It was good. A little tough, but the flavour was great. We'd eaten babi guling somewhere else previously and this was MUCH better, so the rumours are true.

Ubud is definitely a place for the food lover. Read up on where you'd like to go and go find them, if the word is out about them, it's likely that its worth the search.

Next post?

Casa Luna Cooking School.