Name: Balinese Spiced Pork in a Banana-Leaf Packet
Yield: for 6-8 as a starter
Cuisine: Asia
Ingredients: 1 tsp salt; 1 tsp grilled and crumbled shrimp paste; 1 tsp chopped Chinese keys; 1 tsp chopped galangal; 2 tsp chopped ginger root; 3 tbsp groundnut oil; 2 tbsp lemon juice; 115 g/ 4 oz fresh shiitake mushrooms, chopped; 115 g/ 4 oz pigs’ liver, chopped, or black pudding, skinned and chopped; 175–225 g/ 6–8 oz loin of pork, cubed, then chopped finely or minced; 1 tsp chopped palm sugar or brown sugar; 3 tbsp chopped flat-leaf parsley; ½ tsp salt; 1 banana leaf (optional, see above); 2 large green chillies, deseeded and chopped; 2 tsp chopped fresh turmeric; 3 shallots, chopped; 4 garlic cloves, chopped; 10–cm / 4–in length of rhubarb, chopped

Preparation info

for
6-8
as a starter

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

New Wave Asian

By Sri Owen

Published 2002

About

If you feel like being traditional, or if you have a restaurant in Bali and want to attract the tourists, then by all means use banana leaves. If you want to be more practical, cook this in the oven as a large parcel wrapped in foil. The effect is the same: the pork cooks in its own steam inside the wrapping. I explain both methods here. In Bali, people use pigs’ blood as one of the ingredients, and as an alternative to this I recommend pigs’ liver or black pudding. I love to eat this dish