I’ve always wanted to learn Asian cooking, but somehow I was never motivated enough to do a cooking class whilst on holiday. Until we went to Ubud. And I can tell you, I’m really glad I did the Balinese cooking class! Balinese food tastes amazing and I learned a lot about Balinese cooking. If you want to do a cooking class in Ubud I can definitely recommend Jambangan Cooking Class in Tegalalang village, just North of Ubud.
There are many cooking classes in Ubud Indonesia. Since Ubud itself is very busy, we chose to stay in a village outside of Ubud in a lovely family homestay called Kas Komala. There was a cooking class down the road, only about 5 mins away. After looking it up on TripAdvisor it turned out people were really happy about it, so I decided to book a morning class with them.
The start of my Bali cooking class
There were 12 people in my cooking class, all ages and from all over the world. Pilled in two cars, we drove to the market for ingredients. Actually, we didn’t buy a lot, just some spices, but it was nice to visit a local market. We’d already been to a few, but I guess for most short-term tourists it would be quite an experience. Of course, local markets always offer great photo opportunities!
Back to the family compound for cooking
After the market, we went to the family compound for the cooking class. We were welcomed with a nice drink of young coconut and shown the kitchen and dining tables. Very professional setup. It was obvious they had a lot of experience teaching the classes because even with 12 participants things ran very smoothly. No time for relaxation, it was time to work! The gender bias was quite clear, the boys had to do the hard work of pounding and grinding the meats and spices and the girls did all the cutting.
Fun Balinese cooking class
Of course, the class was also meant to be fun. While we were cooking there was time for jokes and sharing stories as well. We had a very diverse and international group with Canadians, Australians, Czech, Germans, Norwegians and English of all ages and it was nice to hear what everybody was up to. For instance the couple from the Czech Republic was in Bali on their two week honeymoon. He was a marine captain who works in Nigeria for a Dutch dredging company, 6 weeks on/6 weeks off. Unfortunately, his wife didn’t speak English, but we managed to communicate any way. One of the Germans was actually Czech by birth and did sales for a company selling Czech steel in Germany and the Norwegian girl had just been in Australia for a year on a working holiday visa.
Best cooking class in Ubud
The dishes we made were absolutely delicious! And with such basic ingredients, amazing. We made a clear mushroom soup that was absolutely to die for, homemade peanut sauce, basic yellow sauce (that has sooo many uses), chicken curry, sate lilit (lollipop sate, with ground chicken), gado gado, Balinese lawar (salad), pepes ikon (fish in banana leaf) and fried tempe manis. I really hope I can find all the ingredients when we’re back in Holland, because these are dishes I would love to be able to make at home!
I’m not sure if it’s the best cooking class in Ubud, but I would definitely recommend the Jambangan cooking class! It’s run by a lovely family, the setup is very professional, things run smoothly and I learned a lot about Balinese cooking. And, not unimportant, it was fun!.
