12 July 2006
The green papaya soup with coconut milk was sublime. So too were the prawns in spiced tomato sauce.
Thus, with my palate invigorated from the press taster session, I was ready to meet the maker at his base for the week the Fairmont's Spectrum on One.
Heinz von Holzen has a name you would not associate with Bali.
Yet this Swiss chef has become synonymous with the cuisine of the Indonesian island and has broken new ground in documenting Balinese recipes to preserve them in time.
The 47-year-old has been living in Bali since 1990 after transferring from the Hyatt Hotel in Singapore to escape the rat race of the city.
On arriving at the brand new Grand Hyatt in Bali, things were quieter than he expected as Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait had a negative impact on tourism in Indonesia at the time.
Competitions
With no guests to cook for, von Holzen organised cooking competitions with the chefs.
These resulted in a wide variety of dishes which he photographed and noted down.
The recipes sparked the interest of a publisher who asked von Holzen to compile a cook book on Balinese cuisine.
Von Holzen says: "When I first arrived, you could get a couple of books on Indonesian cuisine but there wasn't anything on Bali.
"When we opened the hotel, the chefs came to me and said, 'Heinz, how do we cook nasi goreng?' (fried rice with chicken and shrimps).
I said, 'I don't know. It's your country - you show me how to cook your own food'. The Balinese have great difficulty in talking about their own culture."
Selection process
So with the challenge of creating a definitive guide to Balinese cuisine, von Holzen got together with half-a-dozen chefs and set to work.
"We all cooked dishes and they all tasted a bit different so we took a democratic vote on which was the best way. Three-quarters of the recipes in the first book were done that way," says von Holzen.
His efforts paid off in the form of The Food of Bali published in 1992.
Class in cuisine
As well as writing books on his favourite cuisine, von Holzen holds lessons to teach others how to recreate the dishes at home.
Part of his visit to Dubai with two Balinese chefs was to offer a cooking class for 12 students at Spectrum on One, at the Fairmont hotel. Von Holzen began with the basics.
"The most important thing in Balinese cooking is the basic spice mix - that's what we call a bumbu. This is the essence of Balinese food," he says.
The three-hour session saw the eager participants discovering how to make a spice paste for chicken, fish, lamb, beef and duck.
He then helped them to create a selection of dishes including seafood satay, fish in banana leaf and nasi goreng.
But don't worry. If you missed the lesson, there is still a chance to try the food.
Taste the picture
We asked Heinz von Holzen to describe the personality of Balinese food.
He said: "Imagine a mountain and from the mountain little streams of water comes down, little rapids. It is very busy, that's what Balinese food is. It is very much alive. It has a lot of surprises and a lot of currents.
"Then the streams continue to the ocean. When they come to the flat areas the busy wild water streams become a gentle river and that's what the Indonesian or Javanese food is all about. It is sweeter."
By I-Cheng Chan
Gulf News 2006. All rights reserved.
