Bumbu Bali - THE taste of Bali in a jar.

Another savoury recipe today, (I promise i'll be back to baking alchemy soon!!), but I promise you this is a cracker! I am lucky enough to have been to Bali on my honeymoon. We didn't really know what to expect in regards to food, I had a vague spattering of knowledge about Indonesian food but the Balinese are proud of their roots and despite being officially part of Indonesia they do things there own way. 

 I didn't have a bad meal in Bali, in fact I would go as far to say we didn't even have a mediocre meal, we ate everywhere we could .. road side shacks to the 5 Star food at our hotel.  Our hotel was the Alila Manggis in the quieter East Bali and they are known for their Balinese cooking courses, my budget didn't stretch to a course but that didn't stop me bothering the chef for recipes! He was wonderfully helpful and after a busy service stood with me in the empty restaurant where I eagerly scribbled down recipes on the back of an envelope (Rick Stein style - get me!!). The chef explained the most important ingredient in any Balinese kitchen is the "Bumbu", this is a paste of wonder. It can be used to marinade meat and works wonderfully as a marinade for chicken or lamb for satay,  it is brilliant as a base for spicy soups or stews and most importantly the base of my most favourite food of all time, Babi Kecap - a slow cooked pork in Kecap Manis, a sweet Indonesian soy sauce.  This recipe makes about a jam jar full, it can be kept in the fridge for about 7 days but if you portion it into an ice cube tray it can be frozen and used in portions almost like a spicy little stock cube. Me and my husband have had sort of serious discussions about making this up and selling it at farmers markets. It's THAT good. 

I have changed the recipe slightly to make the ingredients more obtainable to us here in the UK. I think our supermarkets are getting much better (hurrah) but I still couldn't find everything here. 

You will need: 

25g of birds eye chillis

115g shallots 

50g garlic cloves

25g galangal (Thai ginger) A little tip for you, they have started selling fresh galangal in my local Morrisons store. Very impressive! 

30g Ginger 

1.5 tsp of ground turmeric

25g of palm sugar (if you really can't get palm sugar brown sugar will do)

50g of ground almonds

1 stalk of lemongrass

1/2 tablespoon salt 

50ml coconut oil 

2 Bay leaves 

150ml water 

1) Place the chillis (de-seed if you prefer less heat), shallots, garlic, galangal, ginger, palm sugar, tumeric, salt, coconut oil and ground almonds in a food processor (I have this awesome little Ninja that I picked up on QVC it is my desert island kitchen gadget and perfect for this job!). Blend it all together until it reaches a fine paste. 

2) Place this blended mix in a heavy bottomed saucepan and turn on the heat, cook this spicy paste for a couple of minutes (careful not to colour or burn it) and then pour on the water, add the bay leaves. Bruise (smash ..) the lemon grass stalk and add this to the yellow paste of wonder .. it will look like this : 

3) Keep the heat on medium and continue to stir and "cook down" the paste for about 30 minutes, the water will evaporate and you will be left with a thick paste. 

4) Remove the bay leaves and lemon grass stalk and pour the paste into a clean jar or any other convenient container (I really don't recommend plastic though as the turmeric will stain it). 

Your paste is now ready to marinate meat, pot into a spicy soup, knock up some nasi goreng or satay. I have even used it to marinate a couple of pork chops to serve with coconut rice for a quick mid-week meal.