When we left Bali last week, my paradisical travel bubble burst: ceiling fans and lush sweet frangipani flowers have been replaced by fake orchids and round-the-clock air conditioning; locals devoted to poetic offerings to their ancestors are now overweight twenty somethings obsessed with beer, lots of beer; and the charming wood carving studios are now adult superstores.
I won't mention the name of the city we are currently stuck in in Northern Australia - but suffice it to say, I won't be coming back here. Did I mention that is is beyond expensive here too. Ugh.
In wanting to savor the taste, smell, and vibe of Bali, I offer Mini's superb recipe to you.....
Mini is a fabulous cook. Everything she makes is full of flavor and belly-warming goodness. Recently, I got to spend the afternoon in her kitchen and learned a number of her delectable dishes. This stew was my favorite. I ate it for lunch for five days straight! It was that good.
At Sarinbuana, a small eco-resort tucked in the mountains of Bali, you order your meals at the beginning of the day so that just the right ingredients can be plucked fresh from the organic garden. This is not your run of the mill organic kitchen garden, but a permaculture food forest in the mountain jungles of Bali. Wow!
Okay, in most of our lives we don't have access to magical rain forest ingredients, but I do think that if you use whatever veggies you grow yourself or pick up ultra fresh at the market, you will be rewarded with a really tasty, and ridiculously quick meal. So many veggie combinations would work for this soup. Play around with the recipe and use what is in season.
Cap Cay ( pronounced "chap chai") is a traditional Indonesian dish and I think is going to become a staple meal in our household. Mini and I made this stew in a single serving size (for my dinner in fact) and I thought a solo lunch or supper recipe would be a nice thing to have on-hand. You can easily double, triple, quadruple this recipe to suit your needs.
Mini's notes and condiments for the day's meals...
