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Easter
Blog 7
Wednesday April 12 2023
Easter
Normally we are in the Netherlands with Easter, we make fresh croissants and we have lunch with family. You know, the standard Easter stuff. When Easter weekend arrives I have already eaten too many Easter eggs and cookies, which of course I always regret, but I have not seen one (!!!) Easter egg here... On the one hand quite disappointed, but on the other hand I might just have to be happy with that. Right? So I'm never alone with Easter and I didn't intend to be this time. That's why I asked Dion to take the day of off. Just a day together without diving so we could do something fun. I asked and it was done! The original plan was to go to Ubud by scooter and take a little tour. We will save this for another time, because we also wanted go to the local market and cook with our new friends from Warung Rainbow.
Warung Rainbow
Before I tell you about the market and cooking, let me introduce you to Warung Rainbow. If you follow me on Instagram you've probably seen it a 100 times already, but then you can skip this part.
I have a whole list of restaurants I want to eat at during our time here and this one is on it too. Warung Rainbow is a mini restaurant, which I think we would call a toko in the Netherlands. You can eat there at 1 of the 5 mini tables or take away and Rainbow gets a 4.9 on Google!!! We had already seen a lot of places, but was it really local food? I don't know... Many restaurants adapt their dishes so that it fits more in Western standards. For example, the sambal is never really hot and Dion is disappointed every time he doesn't sweat from his food. So it was time for real local food and so we finally came to Warung Rainbow. We can't get away from it anymore and it's a wonder that the owners, the married couple Mia and Agus, aren't tired of us yet. In fact... Every time we're done eating and most of the customers are gone, Agus comes out of the kitchen with a bottle of booze and 2 shot glasses: "Dion, Arak?!". And then it gets really fun...
Photos from our many visits to Warung Rainbow
Visiting The Local market
We were told by another guest of Warung Rainbow that you can take cooking lessons with Mia and Agus and that you go to the local market in advance to get everything there. Agus told us the day before that he actually already had all of it at home and that buying everything on the market is quite risky. The market opens at 2 o'clock in the morning (!!!) and because nobody has a huge stock, gone is really... gone. And we certainly weren't planning to be there that time, but I still wanted to take a look. We decided to go anyway and Agus would give us a tour of the local market where he's a regular. We arrived at the market at about 07.15 in the morning and you know what... there were indeed a lot of things gone already. Couldn't find a coconut to drink from anywhere! It was also quite a challenge to get some broccoli.
What else can I say about the market? It was just a market! Although it is of course not the same market as in the Netherlands. The meat is not in the refrigerator and fish is not on ice... Oh well, it apparently works. Another fun fact: As a tourist you pay more than a local. Good thing we were with Agus, because he did the talking for us.
Dion tasted a lot of new fruits and also bought it all so that he could spoil his colleagues at the diving school. I played it safe and went home with a package of prawn crackers!
With Agus to the local market
Cooking class
When we came home to Mia and Agus we first chilled for a bit. Chatted with Mia, showed what we bought, looked at the house a little and met the kids. Everything was layed out already so we could start at any time. We see Mia and Agus almost every day. So we made a list with what we wanted to cook the day before. The following was on the menu for Easter brunch:
Ayam Satay Bali - Mia and Agus sell the most delicious chicken satay so that had to be at the top of the list. Of course we just want to keep eating this at home when we get back. The basis of many of their dishes is a bumbu they call 'Balinese Spice', so this is also where the chicken gets its flavour. So the recipe I wrote down is actually for that bumbu and we can use it for anything. There is a good chance that we will also throw this on all the BBQ meat at home. We can even freeze this bumbu! How cool!!
Peanut Sauce - If you know me, you know I like peanut sauce on everything. Rice, fries, nasi, prawn crackers, chicken schnitzel, meatball, bread... I want it! And the peanut sauce that Mia and Agus serve with their chicken satay is too good, so why wouldn't I want to know what magic is in this? It is a bit spicy for me, but I can always use less chilli at home. Although it can't be spicy enough for Dion, so I'll probably make 2 versions.
Sambal - Speaking of spicy... I haven't been able to find any sambal in the shops in the Netherlands that meets Dion's requirements. There is 1 sambal he can't get enough of and we only get it when we order chicken fried rice from the Surinamese toko. Unfortunately they don't sell these separately, so we have to make something ourselves. So Dion added this one to the list. It is among other things made from hot chili peppers (duh) and tomatoes. Mia and Agus sell a chicken dish called Ayam Sisit at their warung. This is so spicy it will make you cry and sweat, but Dion loved it. Tears and sweat included. If we want to reach this hellish level at home, all we have to do is leave out some of the tomatoes from the recipe we have now.
Cap Cay - Unlike myself, Dion looks for dishes with vegetables everywhere we go. He misses his vegetables he eats at home every day so he insisted on adding this dish. This vegetable dish can be compared to the Tjap Tjoy of the Chinese in the Netherlands. The sauce is based on tomato sauce and Dion threw in all the vegetables he could find. I skipped this one.
Babi Rendang - I regularly make rendang at home and this is one of Dion's favorite dishes. Until recently I made the best rendang, but unfortunately Bali had to ruin that again. There is a restaurant here that, according to Dion, makes the best rendang... Pfff, whatever! But he also wanted to taste Agus's version and yes, this one was also very tasty. Normally you make rendang with ribs or another piece of beef, but this time we chose pork (babi). This didn't take that long on the fire. But at home we will of course try this recipe with beef and then it will just go into the oven for 5 hours!
Ayam Pulung- Dion ate bakso soup at the diving school, which is an Indonesian soup with meatballs. I think this could be beef and chicken. Ayam Pulung is also soup with chicken balls (?) and according to Agus this was tastier. So that's what we did!
Rice- This is part of it, but of course we didn't need any text and explanation... And neither do you!
Of course I wrote everything down in a sort of English-Indonesian-Dutch language mix. Good luck to myself in understanding all that later. I already have quite a few recipes from the Indonesian cuisine at home, but it is always nice to know several variations of a dish. Everything comes in 1 little book! This way I can occasionally switch it up with my rice table. The bottom line is that my family and everyone who comes to eat for Christmas (which is 2 people haha) can expect new recipes. Do you want to taste? Call me!