A few weeks ago, I wrote a piece for Jakarta Post Travel about the unseen origins of Balinese cuisine. (If you haven’t yet read it, you can have a quick squizz here. It’s a great intro to today’s recipe.
Inspired by the island’s culinary traditions, some of the Balinese dishes I’ve been experimenting with are not your usual suspects. Of course there’s some slow roasting free-range duck action (who can resist the Betutu?), but I’m also making Melingo seed crackers, pounding raw sambals from ginger flowers, blanching young ferntips, chopping up pigs ears and roasting coconut.
So, I’m learning a lot about wild edibles – or ingredients that are found and foraged, rather than commercially cultivated. The Balinese know a thing or two about them. And I’m picking it up quickly.
So one of my new favourite ingredients are fern tips. I’m not talking using the entire leaves here, just the softest, youngest tips. The kind that are sold in Asian wet markets. You might have seen them there before and wondered what the hell you would do with them. Or what they taste like. (A little like asparagus actually. As it turns out, today is your lucky day.
This recipe puts them together with papaya flower buds – (another ingredient that you can find at your local Asian wet market) to create a fresh, botanical vegetarian stir-fried dish that is not just delicious, but super healthy too.
Here’s what the end result should look like. More or less. A bowl of deep green, botanical goodness.
[Photo courtesy of the shoot I did with Martha Stewart Living's December issue]
For more Balinese culinary hits, pop in to Mama San to try the new limited-edition Kitchen Sessions: Bali menu. It’s all slow-roasted duck and little parcels of snapper and roasted coconut. And there’s a new version of the much loved Betel Leaf starters that are bestsellers at Sarong.
There might just be some satays too. And who doesn’t love a juicy babi satay?
WM.
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