Paon Bali Cooking Class

This deserves it's own post because this was hands down my favorite thing we did during our trip to Bali! If you are traveling anywhere and can book a cooking class making local dishes, I highly recommend it.
Not only did we have a great time cooking, we got to eat everything we made and left with the recipes so we could re-make them at home. Win!

The class started off with a trip to the Ubud Market which is located near the center of town. We were picked up in the morning from our hotels and met the rest of our "classmates" for the day (which were basically a bunch of Europeans and Australians). We got a tour through the market, showing us all the vegetables, fruits and spices most used in Indonesian cooking. 





A lovely offering.


Once we had bought the spices and vegetables that we would use, we headed back to the village where our cooking instructors lived. They explained to us how the village is set up, orientation of the homes, the rice fields and how everyone plays a part in harvesting the rice. There are quite a few kinds of rice grown in the village and they harvest enough for everyone to eat. It was amazing how different life is than back at home. I wish I would have written it all down to remember all he told us.

Next, they invited us into their home, served us delicious ginger tea and we watched as they collected the herbs from their large garden. We then got down to business and started cooking...




The Basic Yellow Sauce is very important in Indonesian cooking, so we got started on that first. Here we combined all the ingredients and each took a turn mashing them up in a huge mortar.

A look at all our ingredients waiting to be chopped, sauted and cooked!




I had tons of photos of us cooking but I decided to spare you the majority of them. Here Geoff is working on the Deep Fried Tempe

Cooking the Chicken on Bamboo...


In the end, our spread included-

Clear Mushroom and Vegetable Soup

Basic Yellow Sauce
Chicken in Coconut Sauce

Minced Chicken grilled on Bamboo Sticks















Vegetables in peanut sauce
Coconut and Snake Bean Salad

Steamed Fish in Banana Leaves
Deep Fried Tempe in Sweet Soy Sauce

Boiled Banana in Palm Sugar Syrup


Here is my plate full of yummy food!

First one to serve the desert!

To say it was a feast was putting it mildly. It was amazing! I would do this again in a heartbeat if we ever make it back. The instructors were so nice, they asked us all if there was anything that could be improved upon before we left. One guy yelled out "more beer" and as we got back into the vans to leave, they brought out a few extra beers. :)

Ever done a cooking class in another country?