Babi Guling

Babi Guling

Good evening dear readers. So sorry for the lack of posts of late! Been really busy at work, and will crash the moment I hit the beds! But tonight, to make up for it, I’m going to share a recipe that would make you salivate from start to finish! Babi guling! I’m not sure if you have had this before, but let me tell you, it’s something you definitely want to try!

babi guling in Ubud

The first time I had babi guling was in Ubud when the Mr and I went for our honeymoon! (: It was highly recommended by a close friend, and the moment we tried a mouthful, we understood why. It was absolutely delicious. The meat was so tender and melts in your mouth. The skin was so crispy! Just the way we love our pork! hehe While walking to the shops after our delicious meal, we were lucky enough to see one of the suckling pigs delivered to the shop on top of a man’s head! hehe Love to see things that we don’t get to see everyday. Made our trip more memorable! The suckling pig was roasted to perfection! We were so tempted to have another plate just looking at it! hehe

Babi guling out of the oven

My memories were triggered when I was watching MKR and the winning team made their version of babi guling. It looked so so good and I was hoping they would post their recipe on the MKR website. Thankfully, they did! The mr requested for me to make it a few weekends ago and I happily and most willingly did! (:

spice paste - base gede

When I made the spice paste (base gede), I knew immediately it was gonna be really good as it smelt really close to the one we had in Ubud! I got more and more excited as the spices were blending as the smell of the aromatics just filled the kitchen. I couldn’t wait to get it into the oven and bake it! hehe The only thing that I would do when I make it again is to marinade the pork with the spice paste for at least a couple of hours, so that it would flavour the meat more!

Babi guling - sliced

Other than that, everything was perfect, from the crispy skin to the tender meat. Absolutely divine! We just wanted to finish everything, but had to leave some for lunch the next day! hehe So do give this a try, it’s no surprise why Dan & Steph are the winners of MKR. Their recipe was spot on and definitely a keeper! heh Please don’t get overwhelmed by the amount of ingredients! It’s really worth the trouble of finding them all!

Babi guling - Served

Babi Guling (Recipe adapted from MKR)

1.5kg pork belly, rind scored

2 1/2 tbs olive oil

300ml coconut milk

100g bean shoots

2 tsp kecap manis

A bunch of bok choy, boiled and drained

2 tsp shallot oil

Steamed jasmine rice, to serve

Spice Paste (Base Gede)

Juice of 1 lime

4 long red chillies, deseeded

1 stalk of lemongrass,  white part only, bruised and finely chopped

4 green spring onions (white tender part only) roughly chopped

2 cloves of garlic

2cm piece of fresh ginger, finely chopped

2 cm piece of galangal, finely chopped

1 tbs ground tumeric

1 tbs ground coriander seeds

1 tbs vegetable oil

1 tbs palm sugar

2 tsp ground black pepper

1/2 tsp shrimp paste

1/2 tsp salt

Sambal (For the bean shoots)

4 green spring onions (the green part)

2 small red chillies, deseeded

2 cloves of garlic

 1 cm piece of fresh ginger, finely chopped

1 lemongrass (white tender part only), bruised and finely chopped

2 fresh lime leaves

1/2 tsp shrimp paste

Juice of 1/2 lime

1 tbs vegetable oil

1/2 tsp salt

pinch of ground black pepper

Spice paste rubbed on pork belly

Steps :

1) Preheat oven to 240 degree C.

2) To make spice paste, process all ingredients in a blender to form a smooth paste. Reserve 1/4 cup for the sauce.

3) Lightly prick the meat side of pork with a sharp knife or skewer and rub in spice paste in a thick layer. Roll lengthways and secure at several intervals with butchers string. Place in a baking dish. Rub salt into skin.

Spice paste and pork belly

Spice paste evenly spread on the meat side of the pork belly

All rolled up!

4) Roast for 20 minutes. Reduce oven to 175 degree C and cook for a further 1 hour 15 minutes or until tender and cooked through. Remove from oven. Rest lightly covered with foil for 30 minutes.

Babi guling - ready to be sliced

5) To make sauce, heat 2 teaspoons of the oil in a small saucepan over medium heat. Add reserved spice paste. Cook for 5 minutes or until fragrant. Stir in coconut milk and juices from rested pork. Bring to a boil. Simmer for 5 minutes.

6) To make sambal, process all ingredients until smooth.

7) Cook bean shoots in a saucepan of boiling salted water until tender. Drain and set aside. Heat a lightly oiled frying pan. Cook sambal until fragrant. Add bean shoots and toss to combine. Stir in kecap manis.

8) In the same pot of water, boil the bok choy until tender, drain and place in a bowl. Add the shallot oil and toss it well.

8) To serve, slice the pork into 1-inch pieces and serve on hot steamed jasmine rice with the sambal bean shoots, bok choy and lots of sauce.

Babi guling with sambal bean shoots and sauce

ENJOY! (:

Babi guling - Served

So dear readers, hopefully you’re not too hungry after reading this post! But do give this a go as you would definitely not regret it! Especially if you and your loved ones are meat lovers. This is definitely a dish for you! (: Hope all of you had a good (and delicious) weekend! Here’s to a good week ahead!

PS : The sauce is so good, even my mr who usually isn’t a fan of sauce couldn’t stop pouring over his rice! hehe

Remember to always bake and cook with love!

23 thoughts on “Babi Guling

  1. Daisy@Nevertoosweet says:

    Hey lovely 🙂 great to see you blogging again and with such a yummy recipe! Don’t stress about not blogging quick enough or anything like that! I always feel bad too but working full time isn’t easy and finding the time to make these delicious dishes need effort too ~ I’m sure your other Readers like myself don’t mind and completely understand!

    I’m such a nooooooob i have no idea and haven’t heard about Babi Guling but it sure looks delicious to me and who doesn’t like PORK BELLY!!! 😀 xox

    • liannelow says:

      Thanks lovely! (: hehe It’s really quite hard sometimes, but I am trying my best! That must count yes? hehe

      No worries! Unless you’ve been to Bali, or else you won’t know about Babi Guling either!! hehe I didn’t know before I went for my honeymoon! hehe but this is really SO SO GOOD!!! Make Ricky make it for dinner one day! hehe I’m pretty sure he would love it!!! xx

  2. Daryl says:

    What a lovely blog you have. I follow “Cooking With Mr. C. On WordPress” and now I will follow you. Love food blogs. Daryl

  3. Alice says:

    I’ve been having Babi Guling withdrawal since we came back from Bali last week. Thank you so much for this! Hunting every single ingredient here in Singapore and making this very soon 😀

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Google photo

You are commenting using your Google account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s