Along with what seemed to be half of Singapore, I was in Bali lately on holiday. But My spouse and i a specific mission: To eat all the babi guling I possibly could.
Babi guling, or even chunks of spit-roasted pork and crackling served with grain, soup and veggie mixtures known as lawar, is one of the culturally special dishes on the predominantly Hindu Indonesian isle.
To prepare the pork, a whole pig is full of a mixture of onions, chillies, turmeric, ginger and spices before becoming suspended over a wooden fire and rotated by hand, the word “guling” meaning to turn inside a circular motion.
It’s said that babi guling originated being a meal of kings in Bali’s social heart, Ubud. And among the Balinese consumers, it’s still the dish associated with festivities and community, shared with family and friends on occasions like religious festivals or the birth of a baby, for example.
Naturally , there are restaurants all over Bali dedicated to offering up their renditions of babi guling, or “bigul”, since it’s affectionately nicknamed. Go in, order the “special” – the same thing everyone else is having – and you’re set for a delicious porkathon.
When i learned from the locals, the dish varies across the island. For example, there are as many variations of lawar as there are regions within Bali – up north in the city of Singaraja, for example , they mix pig’s blood into it. They also use black domestic swine that have less body fat.
As for person restaurants, some may serve urutan or even blood sausage with their dish, perhaps; while others, catering mainly in order to tourists, might keep offal off the menu. And one restaurant might serve a very traditional soup of jukut ares or banana stem, while one more might instead offer a more internationally accessible broth of carrot and onion.
But there is one thing that everyone wants on: The skin of the pig, roasted to a shiny glaze, should be so earth-shatteringly sharp that the Balinese have an onomatopoeic title for the sound produced when you bite in it: “Kriuk”.
One local demonstrated a means of producing ideal “kriuk”: Pour the bottle of Coca-Cola over the pig before roasting it. Most likely not a traditional method, but , you know, whatever works.
A scorching tip: It’s easy to think of babi guling as a lunch dish, but if you want to get the fullest experience, arrive at the restaurant early. That’s when the meat is still warm, the crackling is still sharp and you’ll be able to appreciate the dish using its best face forwards.
WARUNG BABI GULING PANDE EGI