Category: Recipes

These are a great dessert.  It does require banana leaves though, so get on over to your local Hispanic grocery store and practice your Spanish.  You may even be able to buy them online if you like.  You also need a steamer.

The bananas you use for this are not the regular big telephone bananas that you get for lunch.  Rather, these are small guys, like you’d get on an airplane, that are a bit less delicious if eaten raw but good cooked.  Their flavor is deeper than a regular banana with more of a tropical, honey-like taste than the big blunt flavor of the (still delicious) kind you normally find in the US.  If you cannot find these (again, look at the Hispanic store), you could try very unripe very large regular bananas, cut in half crosswise first.  If you are feeling adventuresome, you could probably get the right taste using a very ripe plaintain.

Filling
250 grams of glutinous rice, soaked in water for two hours.
1/2 cup thick unsweetened coconut milk
2 tbsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
6 cooking bananas, halved lengthwise

Wrapping
24 8cm by 8cm banana leaf squares, softened by dipping in boiling water for a second
string or toothpicks

Steam the rice over boiling water for 15 minutes.  While rice is steaming, heat sugar, salt, and coconut milk over low heat until hot and blended.  When rice is steamed, add it to the milk mix and stir until the rice soaks up all of the mixture.  (The rice won’t be quite done yet; this is ok).

Arrange two banana leaf squares, shiny side toward you, on a plate.  Place one-twelfth (like two tablespoons or so) of the rice in the middle, and squish a banana half into it.  Rolle the banana leaves up like an eggroll or a burrito, and fix shut with either string or toothpicks.  Repeat with the other 11 bananas.

Place the banana packets in a steamer and steam over boiling water for 35 minutes.  Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature, then serve.  They look like this.

This is the East Balinese spicy fish curry that we made while we were in Manggis.  It is really just incredible, and you would probably be able to find all of these ingredients in the US.  For fish, try to use a medium-firm but non-oily white fish.  They called the fish that we used “snapper,” but we all agreed that this was not what we think of as snapper.  Maybe swordfish, but it might be a bit too firm.  Oh well, just experiment, it will taste good, it’s just that the fish may fall apart.  The recipe name means “Coconut Fish Curry.”

Fish and Marinade
1/2 lb firm non-oily white fish, cut into chunks
2 tsp. sesame oil
zest of one lime, grated
Splash of orange juice
1 pinch ground cumin
1 pinch ground coriander
5 basil leaves (lemon basil if you can find it), julienned
salt and pepper

Sauce
1 recipe sambal pasih
2 red chilies
1 clove garlic
1/4 cup coconut milk
2 Tbsp water
2 lime leaves
1 cinnamon stick
salt and pepper
2 Tbsp cashews, chopped

Mix fish with the marinade ingredients and set aside.  Mash the chilies and the garlic to make a paste.  Place a skillet over medium-high heat; when hot, add the fish and quickly saute just until done, remove to plate.  In that pan, add sambal pasih and spice paste, and saute (add a little more oil if needed).  Saute until fragrant, add lime leaves and cinnamon stick.  Saute for three minutes; add coconut milk and water and reduce.  Return fish to the pan and heat through, then add cashews and season with salt and pepper.  Serve with rice.