Bebek Betutu

Name: Bebek Betutu
Total time: 5 h
Yield: 6
Cuisine: Balinese
Ingredients: 1 Whole duck, about 2 kg; 15 Shallots; 10 Garlic cloves; 12 Red chillies; 8 Bird's eye chillies; 6 cm Fresh turmeric; 5 cm Galangal; 4 cm Ginger; 8 Candlenuts; 2 tbsp Coriander seed, toasted and ground; 1 tsp White peppercorns, ground; 2 tsp Terasi, toasted; 3 stalks Lemongrass, finely sliced; 6 Kaffir lime leaves; 300 g Cassava leaves or spinach, blanched; 5 tbsp Coconut oil; 1 tbsp Salt; 6 sheets Banana leaves, softened over a flame

A whole duck packed inside and out with Balinese spice paste, wrapped in banana leaf and cooked for hours until the meat gives way at a spoon — the island's ceremonial dish, ordered a day ahead.

Source

Recette de Balinese home kitchens · 🏺 Traditionnel · Balinese household cooking

Bali · ceremonial slow-cooked duck — An ownerless regional dish, so no cook is credited. The cited article confirms betutu as a Balinese dish of steamed or roasted chicken or duck in rich bumbu betutu, popular in Bali and Lombok. The oven timings, paste ratio and the do-not-open warning are this book's own.

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Blend everything from the shallots to the lime leaves into a coarse base genep. Fry it in the coconut oil over medium-low heat for 15 minutes, until it is dark red-brown and smells sweet rather than raw.
💡 Fifteen minutes feels long. It is not — this paste has to carry a whole duck for five hours, and underfried paste tastes harsh at the end of it.
Cool the paste. Mix half of it with the blanched greens.
Rub the other half all over the duck, inside the cavity and under the skin where you can lift it. Salt it well.
Stuff the cavity with the spiced greens and close it with a skewer.
Wrap the duck in several layers of banana leaf, then in foil, and tie it. Refrigerate overnight if you can.
Bake at 150°C for 4 hours. Open the parcel, spoon the collected juices over the bird, and roast uncovered at 200°C for 20 minutes to colour the skin.
💡 Do not open the parcel early to check. Every opening lets out the steam that is doing the cooking, and the duck goes stringy instead of falling apart.
Rest 15 minutes, then pull it apart with two forks. Serve with rice and the juices.

💡 Astuces

Betutu is temple food — made for ceremonies, cooked in embers and rice husk overnight, and in Bali still ordered a day in advance. Five hours in an oven is the honest domestic version, not a shortcut being hidden.
The greens in the cavity are not stuffing to eat separately — they soak up the fat and are served torn through the meat.