Tag Archives: Bali

Guling Celeng

Posted on by Frank
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Balinese Suckling Pig…  This is what we were getting our fingers greasy on, during a pre-Monsoon storm at a villa in Legian, when I asked Elisa to marry me.  Fiery hot pork and bad weather – no better way to get engaged, yes? 

   Although better known by its Indonesian name, Babi Guling, this suckling pig specialty of Bali is more correctly called Guling Celeng. Suckling pig isn’t so hard to get around the states, but it usually calls for a special order at the meat market.  I normally use rib roasts (sirloin end and not center cuts – to dry) and occasionally shoulder/picnic roasts. Shoulders have the benefit of skin for crisping and eating as part of the magic.  Rib roasts have ribs and those don’t suck at all. Of course, whole baby hogs have all that and are wildly tender. This recipe for one little pig will cover two roasts.  If you go with the roasts make pocket cuts deep into the meat, close to the bones, to pack the spice stuffing.

   One more note – if using a roast, rather than a suckling pig, drop the cooking temp down to about 375°F and add 45 minutes to an hour to cooking time. If you have a large charcoal grill cook it there.  If you have a rotisserie on that charcoal grill you are stylin’.  If your big ass rotisserie grill is fueled by dried coconut husks then you are in the Naruta of grillin’ sweetness. Or you can cook it on a gas grill or in the oven and still love what eventually lands in your mouth. 

Guling Celeng 

1 suckling pig (in the ballpark of 15 lbs)

2 tbs. salt

10 shallots peeled & sliced

6 cloves garlic, peeled, crushed and sliced

2 inches ginger, peeled & chopped

15 candlenuts (kemiri), crushed & chopped (sub 25 Macadamia nuts)

4 inches fresh turmeric**, peeled & chopped (sub 4 tsp. dry, ground turmeric)

2 inches laos (aka galangal), peeled, sliced and finely chopped**(sub ginger)

30 bird’s eye or Thai chiles, sliced

1 teaspoon dried shrimp paste, roasted (wrap in foil, sear in hot pan 2 min/side)

   (sub 1 tsp. Thai Fish Sauce)

2 tbs. coriander seeds, roasted in hot pan till fragrant & crushed

10 stalks lemongrass, bottom four inches only – tough outer leaves

   removed & finely sliced

1 tbs. black peppercorns, crushed

1 tbs ground or fresh grated nutmeg

1 tsp. ground cloves

5 Kaffir lime leaves**, very finely sliced

2 salam leaves (hard to find except via internet – no substitution so omit)

3 tbs. oil 

*hard to come by, sometimes available in pan-Asian markets. Can be ordered on the web, but just as easily subbed by its smaller cousins, Macadamia nuts

** not so difficult to find in Chinese/Asian markets. Can be bought fresh at various times, but often found cryopacked in the freezer section. 

  1. Season pig inside & out w/ salt.  Combine all ingredients, mix well and stuff inside of pig with this mixture. Reserve a little to rub over outside of pig to make it yellow and shiny.
  2. Close belly with string or with a long skewer. Let sit for at least 30 minutes up to an overnight stint in the fridge.
  3. Put pig on rotisserie, on the grill or in the oven at 425°F.  Cook for an hour or so, until it hits 160° in the deep part of its thigh. Remove from heat and rest it for 10 minutes before serving
  4. Remove skin w/ sharp knife, slice off meat.  Scoop out spice stuffing and place a spoonful on each plate topped by meat and skin. 
  5. Eat with white rice and cold beers.

I’ll Give You Ten for the Pig. How Much for the Little Girl?

Posted on by Frank
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I want to go swimming in an ocean.  Elisa and everybody else wants to go sea swimming too. But swimming off the beach at the Aston Bali doesn’t quite happen. Fronted by a rocky shore and shallow reefs, much of Tanjung Benoa isn’t so swimmable. From the resort it’s a couple hundred meters of wading through broken reef and hot water just to submerge your knees. Going further out held little promise beyond teasing sharks with bleeding feet. From our coral stumps out in the sea we could see a beach to north, the wind brought us the laughter of little swimmers and tiny people dangling from tiny parachutes tethered to tiny boats. Parasailing looks like fly-fishing for sharks to me and that sounded fun.  We’d have to get up to that beach to watch…

   We were starting to feel a little like resort shut-ins. But that’s kind of the beauty of Nusa Dua & Benoa – There ain’t a hell of a lot to do otherwise. It’s not an agricultural area, meaning there aren’t any panoramic rice terraces for the gawking. Apart from the fishing nexus over at Jimbaran Bay the area isn’t much of an any-cultural region at all. There is the stunning, ancient cliffside temple of Uluwatu and some pretty spectacular surfing in the ocean below it. On that note, the Nusa Dua area is a place for people who like to play in the water more adventurously. Water sport outlets abound – jet skis, wind surfing, surfing surfing, sport fishing and the aforementioned para-sharking – as do little buildings for boat tours. Shopping joints are tiny and infrequent, meaning I gotta hike for my cigarettes, and that’s about it for non-hotel tourism. The success of the resorts here depends on this limited outside allure anyway, perhaps they even strive to maintain it so guests can spend all their holiday bucks under one roof.  

   Of course that is a horseshit manner of vacationing on the other side of the earth. Resorts are for low-feature, close to home places like Florida. So around one o’clock we took off down the road, hoping to find lunch on less elegant plates.  What’s the name of the road?  Dunno, but it did go from left to right and we hadn’t gone right yet.  Had an appetizer en route, from a pushcart at the construction site of yet another resort.  The vendor spoke no English beyond cash words. But with a little pointing into his Plexiglas box of ingredients he hooked us up with two spicy bowls of clear noodle soup with starchy pork meatballs, sop bakso. Set us back about Four Thousand Rupiah! Holy Fuck! Well, due to a crazy exchange rate we’re only talking pennies in real money – less than two bits per bowl. T still tried debating the price however, making the soup dude confused and nervous. Why the hell would an American have issues with coughing up a quarter for lunch? My boy’s taken a shine to haggling, was all. And the bakso man was probably thinking he should’ve asked for five times as much in the beginning.  Then again, he’s Balinese. None of this island’s people seem interested in screwing anybody over.

   After going right for a quarter mile more we landed at Jukung, a small seafood joint. After chow and a bunch of beer Tim took up negotiations for Bali’s two renowned  specialties: suckling pig (babi guling) & stuffed smoked duck (bebek betutu) for the next day.  I’d given him some guidelines about haggling and now he was playing hardball with everyone. In the end the pig dinner was out as T’s absolute max fell way below their bottom price.  The Balinese will go a long way to make a sale but nobody will work for a loss.*  The waiter did offer to take us to Jimbaran Bay, free ride to and fro, to eat at his family’s joint at sunset the next day.  We promised to return and let him know.

*T’s rabid haggling ways came after comparing some sarongs they’d bought at the Aston to ones we’d snagged in Kuta.  Cheap gifts, we bought a couple for 2 bucks each. When it was apparent we could dicker down below a buck apiece we got some more.  Our pals got shucked at $15 a pop for the same wraps at the Aston and my boy has resolved never to get boned on a purchase again.

Rainbow Flooded Hoppers

Posted on by Frank
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5 Oct/00  Up at five, ran on the beach for a mile, walked back and saw a Javanese hawker lady most certainly not taking a dump in the ocean.  No sir, she was merely walking into the shallow breakwater to let a waxy brown bundle she’d already produced roll out of her shorts into the water. Hey now! If your question was how do sarong and t-shirt peddling ladies have bowel movements in Bali well there’s your answer. Or one of them. The sight helped carve some size off our appetites which was helpful, keeping breakfast light as we packed it in at Tuban and hit the road for Nusa Dua.

   We rejoined T&S at the Aston Bali hotel, which is really on Tanjung Benoa and not Nusa Dua. Both are on the east side of the Bukit Peninsula, which is kind of the gall bladder swinging off the southern lobe of liver-shaped Bali. Tanjung Benoa is like a broken lymph vessel heading north towards the mainland.  Technically, geographically speaking and going farther than I need to here, it’s a spit.

   It’s a highly swanko resort although not the original swankorama they’d left us for, which they said was a shithole.  I doubted that a little, as shithole to S seems to mean less than six bellhops to carry your two bags. Nonetheless the Aston kicks ass all around, aesthetically and comfort-wise; completely self contained, designed to keep the clientele from needing or wanting to leave the grounds for anything. A beautiful, big place with open verandas or lanais or elevated patios or whatever the fuck they’re called & open air stairwells all over the hotel.  There are ponds with lotuses, fabulously scented spas, three alluring restaurants, beachfront, watersport facilities, and a pool.  One mother of a dandy pool, at that. A swim-in rock cove here, semisecluded cul-de-sacs there, jacuzzi seating over yonder, estuaries, lagoons and tiny islands of Lilliputians shrieking in tiny terror of the frequent tsunamis. It also sported a shallow, meter-wide, zero-entry perimeter bedded with gravel to collect sand off feet that have been to the beach.  And, of course, a sunken bar.  Had an icy Bintang beer with my boy T on the submarine stools.  He was loving life & rearing to throw back a bunch of drinks to emphasize the emotion.  I deeply involved with every minute as well, but there is this strange thing that happens to me when I travel: I’m never too keen on drinking a whole lot. Not to mention that multiple beers would have mandated peeing in the awfully nice pool.

   Our room, pardon me, our suite as I’m compelled to prattle about how I’ve become pampered: at $140/night this was a bargain (low season) and pure sugar. We walked into the dining/sitting area with a well-stocked bar, four seat table, 27” Panasonic TV and couch. Then on to a huge bedroom with another big TV with lots of US-based programming inside a gigantic armoire. An ocean-view terrace off the sitting/writing area with its massive, Indonesianly carved big, freaking desk.  There was a linen room, or changing room, or towel pantry or whatever the hell you call fat, closeted rooms that hang off bathrooms.  And a bathroom, bigger than my living room at home, with stone steps to a deep swimmin’ tub, a glass encased ballroom shower and a swell john with matching European porcelain fanny sprinkler. Deee-eee-eee-lux!

   All cool enough except that it turns out we we’re paying just for a nice shower, a little view and the use of the pool.  If we were going to be there any longer we might have gotten around to entertaining, having a bath or running a corporation from the desk. Still, it was a pampering and Elisa deserved that for the last four years of overworking. I sure as heck wasn’t complaining about the cush of it all, even using the bidet often, and unnecessarily, just for the sheer giggle of it…