Culinary Inspiration by Otao Kitchen

THE FOOD OF BALI INDONESIA

Balinese food celebrate Balinese people from the volcanic island of Bali using spices blending with the fresh vegetables, meat and seafood. Balinese food sometime refers to special regional Indonesian cuisine. It demonstrates indigenous traditions and other Indonesian regional cuisine, Chinese and Indian. Bali's culinary traditions are somewhat distinct with the rest of Indonesia. The people Bali celebrate their foods with festivals and celebrations.

INGREDIENTS

Spices such as Kaempferia galanga galangal, shallots, garlic, turmeric, ginger and Kaffir lime are used in Balinese foods. For example popular Balinese 8-spice is made with white and black pepper, coriander, cumin, clove, nutmeg, sesame seed, and candlenut. Other ingredients such as palm sugar, fish paste, and basa gede spice paste are used in everyday dishes.

Many tropical foods are rambutan, mangoes, mangosteen, bananas, jackfruit, rambutan, passion fruit, nangka, pineapple, salak snake fruit, duku, kelengkeng, wani white mango or Mangifera caesia, papaya, longan, melon, oranges, custard-apple, coconut and durian.

Steamed rice is commonly consumed in every meal everyday. Pork, chicken, seafood and vegetables are widely consumed. Because many Balinese follow Hindu tradition so they never or rarely consume beef.

If you've mastered classic French tarts to Australia Palova, perhaps it's time to add some new flavours into your dessert. From Vietnam to Japan and Thailand, traditional Asian desserts are as varied as the cultures and peoples from which they come. With the former, a diversity of Japanese and Japanese cultures has yielded a wealth of ingredients used in desserts such as mochi, glutinous rice, and red beans. In the canon of Thai desserts, find a complex array of confectionary building blocks that range from pandan to cassava root and coconut.

It would be overwhelming to try to master such a vast collection of cuisines, but we've rounded out some of our favourites to help you get a taste. From Thailand's khanom chan to a Vietnamese ca phe sua  inspired ice cream and a Japanese mochi, here are some of the best Asian dessert recipes to try this weekend.

 We love beans and lentils as it is versatile ingredients in Asian kitchen. According to Global Pulse Confederation https://iyp2016.org/themes/food-security-nutrition-innovation beans and lentil are healthy balanced diet and play an important role in stopping illnesses such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease. Bean dishes and lentil dishes are low fat and high fibre plus they also give you essential minerals and vitamins.

You’ve been asked to organise the hen party to beat all hen parties, keep reading for hens party ideas. Whether you’re inspired by celebrity style hen party in Bali or are after a more chilled affair in Great Ocean Road, now is the time to start planning. We have 5 amazing hen do activities.

Freshly made rice paper rolls packed with prawn, rice noodles, carrots, cucumber and herbs, with a sweet chilli dipping sauce.

INGREDIENTS 

For the dipping sauce

• 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 1 small red chilli, finely chopped, remove seed if want less spicy
• 1 tbsp caster sugar
• 3 tbsp fish sauce
• juice 1 lime 

For the rolls

• 100g vermicelli rice noodle or bean thread noodles
• 12 x 20cm rice papers
• 1 bunch of mint
• 18 cooked medium prawn cut in half lengthways
• 2-3 large iceberg lettuce leaves, torn into 12 pieces
• 1 medium carrot cut into thin batons
• a handful coriander
• a handful Thai basil 
• a handful long chives
• 50g bean sprouts

METHODS 

1. Make the dipping sauce by chopping the garlic, chilli together then stir in the fish sauce and lime juice. 

2. Boil a pot of water and add the rice noodle and cook the noodle for 5-7 mins and then drain well. Please check the package for instruction first.

3. When you are ready to make the rolls, dip one of the rice papers in a bowl of hot water, moving it around until the whole wrapper is soft about 3 secs then drain on a tea towel or use one of mat to stop them sticking on the the surface.

4. Place a rice paper wrapper on a board and at one edge of the wrapper, add a few mint leaves, then 2 prawn halves.

5. Place some lettuce on top of the prawns, followed by some noodles, a few strips of carrot and cucumber, some more herbs and finally some beansprouts. Don’t overfill or they will be hard to roll.

6. Lift the edge of the rice paper wrapper nearest to you over the filling and, holding the filling in position with your fingers, start rolling up tightly.

7. When you’re about halfway, fold the ends of the rice paper in and over the filling so that it is completely enclosed.

8. Keep on rolling tightly until the whole rice paper wrapper is rolled up. 

A special step in becoming a good home cook is to have a good set of kitchen knives and learn to sharpen your kitchen knives at your own home.

You might be curious to know what is included in a basic kitchen knife set. There are four styles of chef’s knives and how we would tell you to determine which kitchen chef’s knife is right for you.  Because out of all of your kitchen knives, your kitchen chef’s knife will be your most used tool in your home. 

Even though the market is filled with various styles of kitchen knives, it all comes down to finding a chef kitchen knife that fits your own hand – for it will be the kitchen knife that will take your cooking to much higher levels.

If you are a home cook or a chef, it can be overwhelming knowing what to look for in a kitchen knife with shapes, handles, blades, knife set, sizes, steels and finishes. Choosing a kitchen knife is not as hard you might think, it just seems like it because of all the choices available. The cost and the fear of getting it wrong can be stressful but don't worry, we're here to help you figure it all out and get you a knife so sharp your onions will cry in fear.

Let's cover one the biggest fears first - a good knife can cost a lot of money and it's sometimes scary hovering over at the kitchen store or online. When you buy a kitchen knife in Australia, you're buying something you should be able to use for the rest of your life if you look after it. When a chef decides to buy knives they look for something to use daily and for his and his cooking career because they learn how they can look after their kitchen knives.

It's not the most efficient way to use your knife on a tomato, capsicum or eggplant.  It's a great demonstration of the sharpness of kitchen knives. If your current knife can't manage this, it might be time for you to think about sharpen your kitchen knives or upgrade to something better.

We often get asked for a recommendation and we nearly always give the same answer if a customer doesn't have a specific style in mind or they're after a general use chef knife and that's to buy something from the range. They have it all - beauty, sharpness, a quality edge and hard wearing carbon steel and an excellent price tag. 

If you're after a little more then we recommend heading to the homepage and browsing all our ranges where we've written about and reviewed each knife and and there's a good selection to choose from to cater to all tastes and budgets. 

It's worth bearing in mind that because nearly all of the knives on the site are handmade in small forges by one or two blacksmiths and as such supply is not guaranteed and when a knife has sold out it can sometimes take months to restock. 

If you're keen on a particular knife don't leave it too long to buy it because it might be gone and in the case of some ranges for several months or more.

Read more here as we will guide 7 steps for you how to choose the best kitchen knife for your home. 

Can My Kitchen Rules, Master Chef bring teams closer and boost productivity? A surprising number of startups are trying with cooking parties. From pizza making, dumpling cooking, amazing race and social cook off, food-loving executives are spicing up the ways they engage their team bonding.

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