Tabanan, Rainbow over Ricefields

“Plecing Gonda”
Vegetables from Tabanan

Plecing gonda is a delicious vegetable dish specific to Tabanan Regency, sold in many restaurants together with other popular Balinese dishes. Every Balinese restaurant offering nasi campur (rice complete with mixed meats), always sells plecing gonda.

The communities of the three sub-districts of Kerambitan, Kediri, and Marga, often serve gonda vegetables in their daily menus, and also in dishes dedicated to certain rituals, during receiving private guests, and meetings of Tabanan Regeny’s officials. The rituals related to social or religious ceremonies include weddings and thanks-givings.
A cook from Banjar Ole, Marga, Ni Nyoman Sulatri, confirmed that she always supplies plecing gonda when there is an official meeting, due to its low price and easiness in preparing the vegetable.
According to her, the first step in cooking gonda vegetables, is to boil the raw vegetables for five minutes. The vegetable are then removed from the boiling water and cut into smaller pieces of 5 – 7 cm in length. The spices such as chili, garlic, terasi (shrimp paste), tomato, salt and small lemons are finely ground together. Coconut oil is added before mixing the vegetables with the spices.
I Wayan Sumajaya, a farmer from Tabanan, said that the gonda vegetable is a 35-cm tall green plant. He grows this plant for daily consumption. This plant can over-run precious rice-growing space, but traders from Denpasar’s Badung Market still travel to Marga in search of gonda.
Selling raw gonda without prior cooking is easy business. I Wayan Sumajaya acknowledged one could earn enough money by growing gonda just for sale to markets. It takes 25 days for the gonda to grow enough to be harvested, so it is quite a quick return on any investment. (dar)