Bali Cooking Course: Casa Luna

We were very excited to find out the author of Balinese Cookbook 'Fragrant Rice' Janet DeNeefe has a cooking school in Ubud. The classes were held at her hotel the Honeymoon Guesthouse, which happened to be right next door to our hotel. Typical of Balinese guesthouses and hotels, the grounds were beautiful and filled with that unique Balinese style.

Check out the white carved sandstone wall in the background

We weren't feeling very good that morning and was happy the class began with a cooling hibiscus tea and a seated introduction to local ingredients

The class started with a tangy and tart rujak

A spicy, sweet and tart fruit salad, made on a traditional Indonesian pedestal and mortar

Other items we prepared were beans in coconut milkFragrant yellow riceIndonesian green bean salad LawarCorn frittersGado-Gado, an Indonesian salad topped with peanut sauce, homemade of courseand Balinese satays

The class was well paced, with plenty of opportunity to taste recipes as they were being prepared. The staff did the majority of the food preparation and all the cooking

However we encouraged to take our turns at grinding the pastes and saucesand preparing the satays

The Casa Luna Cooking class was a good introduction to typical Indonesian dishes with minimum participation. The course materials which includes many of the cultural aspects of the dishes and full recipes was also worth the very reasonably price of the class. And of coures we fully enjoyed the feast at the end of all the cooking.