You must be hungry after going around several tourist attractions in Bali. Well, it’s time to feel your stomach with some tasty food! You might be familiar with jinggo rice or sate plecing. But this time, let’s try something else. There’s a special food from Bali, that has a unique taste with unique ingredients.

Sayur Jukut Ares

We often use banana leaves and fruit for cooking. But, Balinese people use banana stems to make sayur jukut ares. This is a typical Balinese food made as side dishes. In Indonesian, jukut is a vegetable and ares is a young banana midrib. Yes, ares is a vegetable made from young banana fronds. To get the deepest fronds, the outer layers of the fronds must be peeled off until you see the white inside. Well, this part will later be processed into vegetables. Also, not all types of banana fronds can be used as sayur ares. Only stone banana stems and plantains are suitable for processing.

Before it’s cooked, the sliced banana stems are boiled with salt, so it won’t taste bitter. In addition, the base genep is also used to process these dishes to make it even more delicious. Some meat, like pork, chicken, or duck are mixed in with vegetables. The taste is very good, especially if served with hot rice. 

Even though it's made from a banana mid-rib, ares contains a lot of nutrients. Apart from low glycemic levels which are suitable for diabetics, this food also contains potassium, vitamins, and also fiber which is good for the body's digestion. So, there are more and more reasons to taste it. 

Ares is generally served during Hindu religious holidays, such as Galungan or Kuningan. But you can also find it in some special restaurants that sell traditional Balinese culinary. For those of you who have abstinence from eating pork, don't worry, you can eat it with duck or chicken. Or if you’re a vegan or vegetarian, you can also eat it without meat.