What Are the Main Foods of Bali?

Bowls awaiting dinner

Tourists visiting Bali may find it difficult to find traditional Balinese food in their hotel restaurants. The dishes take a long time to prepare, are made in large quantities, and must be served fresh. Your best bet is to venture into the towns and seek out the cafes and small restaurants if you want to find Bali's famous dishes.

Sauces and Pastes

Various dry spices are used in Balinese pastes and sauces.

The base of most Balinese food is a simple paste or sauce, which is used to season the dish or for dipping. The paste is of thicker consistency, and often made from chicken, beef, vegetables or shrimp that has been sliced or chopped, pounded into a paste, and then applied to dishes like lamb, chicken or beef. The sauces, usually soy or coconut based, often will come as a side to the main dish, and can be used for dipping or for flavoring vegetables. Dry spices like pepper, coriander, cinnamon and chilies are key ingredients in both the pastes and sauces, as are roots such as laos and kencur.

Meats

Roasted pig is a popular Balinese food.

Meats are a staple of Balinese food. Balinese people eat an array of meat, everything from chicken to ox tongue. Semur lidah (ox tongue in sweet nutmeg sauce) is based on a native Indonesian dish, which calls for a western style cut of beef, but in Balinese tradition people mix nutmeg, sweet soy sauce and ox tongue to complete this stewy dish. Another distinctive Balinese dish is guling celeng (suckling pig). This dish calls for one suckling pig of 6 to 8 kg to be stuffed with a load of spices and vegetables, then sewn up and roasted for about an hour.

Seafood

Given Bali's proximity to the sea, fish is a staple of Balinese cuisine.

Bali, as a culture by the sea, has many seafood dishes. Pesan be pasih (grilled fish in banana leaf) is the Balinese modification of a dish from Java. In this dish, a fish fillet is marinated for six hours in a seafood spice paste and then cooked and served in banana leaves. Sauteed squid is the main flavor of kenus mebase Bali, a dish served with coconut rice. And if the mood calls for lobster, you can order udang pantung kuning (lobster in yellow sauce) and receive a giant lobster drowned in yellow coconut milk.

Desserts

Fried and boiled bananas make up a large part of Balinese desserts.

Many of Bali's desserts are rice based. Bali has numerous variations of rice flour cakes, sticky rice cakes and rice puddings. Other sweet desserts include godoh (fried banana), pisang (boiled banana) and dadar (coconut pancakes).

References

• Bali: Bali Food Information
• Bali Guide: Basic Recipes
• Bali Guide: Meats
• Bali Guide: Seafood
• Bali Guide: Desserts and Cakes

Resources

• Bali Guide: Semur Lidah
• Bali Guide: Guling Celeng, Suckling Pig
• Bali Guide: Pesan Be Pasih
• Bali Guide: Kenus Mebase Bali
• Bali Guide: Udang Pantung Kuning