This green bean salad was spicier than the other dishes I served but was universally liked by my guests. It's not very complicated to make but, as it's the case with most Balinese dishes, it uses a spice paste. Making base be siap, spice paste for chicken, is not very complicated but it requires peeling a lot of shallots and searching for hard-to-find ingredients such as kencur and turmeric roots (I never found the kencur, so I substituted with galangal root, I'm sure it worked well enough). I was making Roast Duck anyway, so I used some of the spice mix that recipe called for. I'm not including the recipe for the chicken spice paste here, but you can find it by following the links or checking the duck recipe. I modified the original recipe a bit (e.g., by frying the shallots, garlic and pepper together) but not too substantially. This is a good dish for vegetarians as well, you can substitute jackfruit for the chicken.
Green Bean Salad with Chicken
Ingredients
For the chicken
- 1/2 lb. ground chicken
- 2 tbsp. spice paste for chicken
- 1 banana leaf
For the salad
- 3 cup green beans
- 6 cloves garlic, peeled & sliced
- 6 shallots, peeled & sliced
- 10 Thai chilies, sliced
- 2 large red chilies, seeded and sliced
- 1/2 cup grated coconut
- 2 tbsp. spice paste for chicken
- 1 tsp. lime juice
- 1/2 tsp. black peppercorns, crushed.
- 1 tsp. salt
Instructions
Prepare the chicken by combining the ground chicken with the spice paste and mixing well. Place the mixture in the center of a banana leaf and roll very tightly. Place the roll on aluminum foil and roll up again. Turn sides in to secure. Poke holes in the underside of the aluminum foil and steam the roll for 20 minutes. Remove the foil and banana leaf and break the chicken with a fork into small pieces.
Prepare the salad. Blanch the green beans and slice horizontally. Fry together the garlic, shallots and 4 Thai chilies for a few minutes. Combine the green beans, the garlic, all the Thai chilies, the red chilies, the coconut and the spice paste in a large bowl. Add chicken and mix well. Season with salt, pepper and lime juice.
Adapted from a recipe at the 99Bali.com website