Balinese Food Cooking Class in Ubud with Chanderi

After a full days tour of rural Bali with our guide Dwi, the intense craving to eat authentic Balinese food was becoming too much to bear. We’d already been in Bali a day and not eaten anything I would consider proper Balinese food, especially after going to the awful awful Naughty Nuri’s the night we arrived. I’d been bugging Dwi all day about food and at the end of the day he dropped us off at Chanderi’s restaurant 200yds down along the Monkey Forest Rd. It was a little cafe like place so after glancing over the menu and talking to the smiling staff we went in.

We sat down, and a little old lady, not more than 4ft tall and very yoda-esqe… wandered over with a coy smile to take our order. When I saw her I knew she was Chanderi and I knew that the food was going to be wonderful. Chanderi, as I found out later, is an amazing lady. She runs this little restaurant, a guest house and a batik shop. Her husband passed away in 1965, and she’s been doing this ever since. There are pictures on the wall of her when she was younger, with those same warm eyes and smile, working away in a smaller version of what she’s built up today. I over heard her speaking a couple of other languages as well. I’m almost 6′ 2″, Chanderi is probably around 4ft tall. I have a picture of her where she comes up to my elbow, and another picture where she is as tall as me sitting down… so I was towering above her. It was quite funny. She reminded of my late grandmother.

Chanderi & Me

I ordered a glass of arak, which was a palm wine – but with the kick of a spirit. We ordered a gado gado salad, a dish of vegetables and tempeh in a peanut sauce, and tum ayam, a dish of minced chicken with egg, herbs and spices, wrapped in a bamboo leaf into parcels and steamed. This was served with rice and some coconut vegetables. Every so often, she’d come over to check how we were and if we were enjoying the food. The food was gorgeous, and topped off what had been a wonderful day seeing Bali.

Gado Gado at Chanderi's

Tum Ayam at Chanderi's

If you are in the area, I do recommend going here to eat. Its quick, cheap and really authentic. My wife and I were talking about where we could find a cooking class… and then a light bulb went off in my head. I looked over at Chanderi… and thought who better to teach me than her… so I asked… she looked up at me, smiled, slowly walked over to her counter and got her diary and penned us in 2 days later on the night of the world cup final (which will explain why I’m wearing a Dutch football shirt in the following pictures), at a cost of approx. £20 per head.

So 2 days on… I was so excited… I didn’t want to shop in the markets in Ubud, I just wanted to go there and cook. We arrived and she told us we’d be making a few things, all of which I would eat at the end. I say ‘I’ as my wife is a vegetarian.

So she set us to work in her kitchen…. starting to make the curry paste for the curry sauce. She showed us exactly how she wanted things done and chopped. My wife and I have this memory of her picking up a rather heavy meat cleaver, and pulverising a clove of garlic on the chopping board in one smash. I tried it that same way… some of the garlic flew across the room, some on to my t-shirt and whatever was left remained intact on the board. Chanderi wandered over, looked up at me, smiled, shook her head and showed me how to do it again. We chopped all the things we needed for the paste, before grinding them into a paste using a balinese equivalent of a pestle and mortar. It was here I discovered the real difference in taste and quality you get when you grind a paste vs using a blender. I then got to work chopping the chicken, fish, and vegetables we would use in making the dishes she was going to show us. Chanderi was a bit of a task master,making sure I was chopping things correctly and if I wasn’t, she’d show me how.

So what did we make…

Bumbu Curry Sauce – the curry sauce we’d be using in all of the dishes to a greater or lesser degree. This paste was complex and contained at least 20 different ingredients all ground together by hand. I’ve managed to replicate it at home since… which is good. I was really surprised by the number of birds eye chilli’s she told us to use and the fact that it wasn’t overly hot as a result. I put this down to grinding the paste as we did.

Balinese lilit satay – Balinese style chicken satay made with chicken mince. The chicken was mashed and mixed with a little of the paste we had made. It was rolled around skewers much like a kebab and then grilled. The satay were soft, juicy and nicely spiced.

Preparing the chicken for the satay at Chanderi's

Chanderi's showing me how to prepare the satay skewers

Peanut sauce for the satay – fried peanuts were ground into a paste with fried garlic, fried tomatoes and chilli and topped with kecup manis.

Chanderi finishing off the peanut sauce with kecap manis

Balinese Lilit Satay

Lawar – this was chicken in a bali curry sauce, with sliced green beans and roasted coconut. I really loved this dish. You do not need to use chicken, any meat will do. The locals use pork, pigs blood etc – but that wasn’t for me really

Lawar at Chanderi's

Ikan Leppes - fish (ikan) with the curry paste made earlier, holy basil, tomatoes, onions and various spices wrapped in a banna leaf, steamed for 15 mins and then pan fried until the leaf is brown.

Ikan Leppes at Chanderi's

Sambal for everything else – tomatoes, onions, chillis and belcan (shrimp paste)

The food was really good. I was quite impressed it’s turned out well. I found out later that Chanderi was a vegetarian, to my surprise and that she loves to eat vegetables cooked in her curry sauce.

For me this was one of many highlights of the trip. Ubud is so full of magic that its taken me a few months to really digest my experiences from there, before attempting to write it up.

You can find the restaurant by using the map below. If you do end up going there, please show her this write up and say hi from us!