TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Savor: ‘Lawar Kuwir Pan Sinar’ - “Duck-based ‘lawar’ is becoming more popular”
Traditional Balinese cuisine used to be a landscape dominated by pork-based offerings
Change Size
Traditional Balinese cuisine used to be a landscape dominated by pork-based offerings. For centuries, lawar babi, minced pork meat mixed with chopped vegetables, and the famed babi guling suckling pig were the island’s most frequently mentioned delicacies.
Times have changed. Rising health concerns over cholesterol-laden pork coupled with intrepid travelers and innovative chefs looking for Bali’s other signature foods have led to the “discovery” of, among others, ayam betutu, slow-roasted spiced chicken, and recently lawar kuwir, minced Muscovy duck with chopped vegetables.
Lawar Kuwir Pan Sinar, the last two words refer to the owner, is a Denpasar warung that spearheads the growing popularity of lawar kuwir.
It lies in a modest compound, which also serves as the residence of the owner, in a narrow alley on Jl. Kroya in Kesiman, East Denpasar.
Finding the alley is not an easy feat, but the locals around the vicinity will gladly give you directions. Things will be easier if you come during lunchtime, because the opening of the alley will be marked by a large number of parked motorcycles. The warung is always packed with customers during that peak time.
Pan Sinar, aka Ketut Gina, was born in Lepang, a village in east Bali known as a center of the duck farming industry.
“That’s the reason why I know how to process duck meat,” he said.
Up to 30 Muscovy ducks are processed in his kitchen. The duck is spiced and steamed before its meat and skin are finely minced and mixed with shredded coconut and young jackfruit. A large amount of base genep, which literally means every spice, a paste made by chopping and mixing all the known spices in Bali, is added to the mixture.
The end result is a dish with a heavenly taste, in which the tender duck meat, the soft jackfruit flesh, the sweet grated coconut and the spicy and sour base genep work in unison to seduce the palate.
A single portion costing Rp 30,000 (US$2.20) gives you a plate of steamed rice, a bowl of jukut ares (banana trunk soup) or komoh (meat broth), and a plate filled with lawar kuwir, two duck satay and a small portion of difficult to find lawar blimbing, chopped star fruit leaves in spicy coconut milk.
