Begala, A Delicious Dish Made from Cassava Leaves

Cassava has had an important role in the history of cooking. It was an essential food during the time that people faced starvation in the 1960s, and was eaten with rice. This kind of food resource can grow well with a minimum supply of water nearly everywhere. Cassava leaves or the tuber may be added to rice as a supplement to a main dish. There is a dish made from this leaf called begala. Begala can be made as a separate dish or as filler called betutu or the favorite meal ‘roasted suckling pig’.
Ingredient:
250 g young cassava leaves
Spices:
2 sticks of lemongrass
3 cloves of garlic
6 cloves of shallot
2 small chillis
some turmeric
some kencur
some galangale
2 tbsp. cooking oil
1 tsp. salt (to taste)

Method:
1. Boil the cassava’s leaf until it is tender. Lift and drain.
2. Finely slice the lemon grass and chop it up with other spices.
3. Mix the spices and the boiled cassava leaves thoroughly. Stir-fry until it’s well done.
4. Take out and serve. (Punia)

The Green Gel from Daluman

Here is a unique drink called daluman. Why? Because such a drink is made from extracts of leaves from daluman or frangipani. Daluman is a kind of creeping plant resembling betel. It’s leaves are dark green and it has soft, white hair on the lower surface. Actually the daluman leaf has a better quality of gel. It is more rubbery than that of frangipani. After leaving it for some hours after extracting, it resembles a dark green gelatin or gel. Try it for quenching your thirst or for reducing a fever.

Ingredient:
300 g daluman leaves
250 ml coconut milk
150 g brown sugar
500 ml water
Salt (to taste)

Method:
1) Make the extract from daluman or frangipani leaves.
2) Filter the extract and keep it in water for about 2 hours until it forms a gel substance.
3) Mix the coconut milk with brown sugar and salt.
4) When the daluman gel is ready, mix it with the sweet coconut milk above.
5) It’s ready to serve. (pun)

The Popular Balinese Fruit Papaya

Papaya (Carica papaya) or gedang (in Balinese) has been a very popular fruit among the Balinese. Originlly it comes from the tropical American Continent, possibly from Mexico by Spanish commercial traffic. It can be served as dessert, vegetable, and as an element in traditional chopped meat or lawar. Lawar is used as religious offerings or for specific events. Papaya is edible when it is ripe. If it is only partially ripe, papaya is useful to make a rujak mix being popular among Balinese as spicy food. Of papaya, one could also produce juice and jam used to give a sweet taste to loaf. Hotels and restaurants always reserve papaya due to it’s constant availability in the market and it’s cheap. Otherwise, it is useful as medication to lower the temperature of people suffering from a cold (early stages of influenza) and to neutralize stomach disorder. The liquid material flowing out of its fruit contributes to the softening of meat, to tanning leather and in producing cosmetics. The tree itself is 10-meter high giving fruit of about 25-meter length and 12-cm diameter with a weight of 2.5 kg. When it is almost one year, a papaya tree is capable of bearing one hundred fruit, with productivity of about three years.
(Text & photo by Gustra)