The one thing I wanted to do on this trip to Bali was a Bali cooking class. I had visions of becoming the queen of satay and transporting that new found skill back to my suburban Aussie kitchen and receiving adoration and hi fives from grown up sons. You know the ones, the ones who have to eat every freakin night. Finding a Bali cooking class though was a whole other ball game.
Bali is overwhelmingly busy and bustling and there’s sooo many business and just how does this mumma find a Bali cooking class. Well, like all good tourists she heads to concierge and hands over far too much cash for an ‘experience’.
Take my money…all of it.
I’ve done it before and I’ll likely do it again because I like convenience. The concierge hustle is a thing and we’ve been burned in the past with big promises costing us even bigger dollars and delivering very little. This time, well it was different. We struck gold.
We booked our cooking class which promised shopping at local market to collect ingredients-tick, a rickshaw ride-tick, a visit to a coffee farm-done it (cross it off the list), visit to a school– yes please and traditional cooking class-tick✔️ Sounds pretty awesome right? Well for $180 Aussie dollars I was crossing my fingers it would be.
To market to market.
An early start saw our driver pick us up at 7:30am and we headed through Seminyak, Kerobokan and up into the ‘jungle’ to visit a produce market. The market is for the locals and had all and truly been picked over by the time we arrived, the locals get started early while the weather is cooler.
The markets were hot, smelly and the walkways filthy but the produce was presented beautifully, go figure. The butchers area made me wanna dry reach and I’m so pleased I was there ‘after’ the bidding and slaughter of livestock. We stopped at the market for around thirty minutes, there was no actual ‘shopping for ingredients’ as stated in the brochure, more ‘here’s your pre packed bag, grab a photo and let’s be on our way’. Still, it was an experience we enjoyed.
We chose to not do the coffee farm as we had done it once before so phone calls were made to rally the rickshaw drivers early. We met them on the side of the road, changed into traditional dress ( a bit gimmicky but fun) and enjoyed a ‘wind through my hair’ kinda ride to the local primary school.
Oh my stars, the joy on the cheeky faces that greeted us at the entrance to the school was priceless!
Kids everywhere ran to greet us and I was giddy with happiness as they all jostled for attention. I’m going to write a post on our school visit so that’s all I’ll say about it here…sorry.
Time for a Bali cooking class
After the school visit it was back into the rickshaw for a short ride to Padangaling village where we pulled up at a local house/business…or something like that. We were greeted by Wyan and Ketut who showed us through to an outdoor kitchen where we went about the business of getting to know each other. It felt really informal, I don’t know what I was expecting, maybe something more western? But we were super thrilled at the authentic rustic charm of the Bali cooking.
The presentation was excellent, the ingredients for each dish were in brightly coloured baskets and recipes and a pen at our place setting. Oh, and we were the only ones there. That was kinda weird at first but then we actually liked it.
Things are different in Bali, nothing moves at great speed, no real structure to things and just a general cruisey vibe, you just gotta surrender to the experience. Our whole lesson was super relaxed but informative and bloody tasty.
Look we are actually chopping and shit with big arsed blades!
No stainless steel appliances in this kitchen, it’s fire baby.
At times I mentally questioned just ‘how long had that chicken been sitting outside for?’, and ‘just how safe is it to wash my hands in that cobbled together tap on the moss covered wall?’…but I threw caution to the wind and did just as the locals did. After all, that was the experience we were really after.
Eating out of banana leaves with coconut husk spoons (pulled straight from the trees) was a bonus.
Check out this turmeric rice (Nasi Kuning)….made it myself
And water spinach greens (Tumis Kangkung)…
Grilling the chicken skewers ( Sate Ayam)…
And the satay topping was just insanely tasty!
We did it! We made THIS! The fried chicken (Ayam Goreng) was sensational!!!!
And then we ate it. Sooo tasty!
We did make fried bananas ( Pisang Goreng) but they were so tasty I didn’t even get a pic. Here’s the ‘before’
Since we’ve been home I’ve made a few of the dishes and while they weren’t a fail the flavour just wasn’t quite like that day in the hills in Bali. Just another excuse to head back to Bali right 🙂
The details of our Bali cooking class
Bali Experience Adventure
Banjar Dinas Padangaling
Desu Cau Belayu
marga, Tabanan, Bali Indonesia
[email protected]
Have you ever done a cooking class? What is your favourite thing to do in Bali?
Til next time,
Jen x
Such fun! We did a cooking “day” with Bali Asli, was the best thing that we did in Bali, the highlight of a fantastic 10 days. Was great to get out of the city and do something less commercial.
Absolutely Shirley, getting out into the villages and amongst the people is a must.
This is so awesome especially the visit to the school! We did an amazing cooking class in Bali too. It looked a lot more structured than yours and a lot more people too. I love the idea of one on one. I wrote about it too, it’s in the blog archives somewhere. I’m wondering if we went to the same market… we got to taste some of the fresh produce, most notably the chillies!
There are so many markets for the locals, it may have been the same one.
Sounds like a fantastic experience.
We really loved it
We did a cooking class with Anika Cooking School and loved it. We opted not to do the full day one with the shopping at the markets as having been to produce markets in Bali before I really didn’t want to return ? Like you did I also dry reached at the smell lol. Also I didn’t want to see where the ingredients had come from otherwise I might not of wanted to eat it. The class was lots of fun though and the food was amazing ?
Wow that looks like fun – I did a cooking class in Thailand but it was a small group within the hotel abut it sent me on an adventure to the local markets to buy chilli oil and a ladle – I was looked at like an alien in the markets but fun nonetheless and then a small cooking class at the hotel restaurant in Fiji- certainly a great experience to add to a holiday – love your photos ?
Hi Jen, I was desperate to do a cooking class last year in Bali but no one else wanted too. So off I went in the car by myself with the driver who came to pick me up… it was an hour long trip up into the beautiful Uluwatu area. We stopped very briefly at the markets ( no shopping) just a quick walk around to look at the produce. I decided that I would become a vegetarian for the rest of the day ?
When we finally arrived at the restaurant, it was just me (and a stray cat) for the cooking class….. awkward.
I did enjoy it though. We made the baskets for our offerings, and I loved chopping and preparing the delicious recipes..although I did decline the offer of gutting and prepping some massive big (fresh???) fish with head and eyes and tail still intact. I said it would be wasteful to use it when it was just for me (good save)
It was a long day and I was very pleased to a: arrive home safely without being kidnapped b: survive the day without food poisening c: jump into out private pool d: tell everyone what an AMAZING experience I had (slightly exaggerated)
We had a Bali Night on my deck a few months later, and I must say the food was amazing. Must do it again xxx
Kate ?
My Mum always does cooking classes when overseas and loves it – comes back and hunts down authentic ingredients and recreates at home. Her satay is pretty dang good!!
Grab her recipes Beth 🙂