VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Enjoying Bali will never be enough to just visit its natural attractions such as beaches and cultural beauty. Here you can also enjoy delicious Balinese cuisines, one of which is Sela Rice. Nasi Sela or Sela Rice is a typical traditional food of Karangasem Regency, Bali, which contains a mixture of white rice and chopped sweet potatoes. In the 1970s, Sela Rice was popular and became a staple food for the local community, because at that time, rice was scarce in Bali. People then used yams to be an alternative carbohydrate in a mixture of rice, cassava or others.

Sela rice, which was once a "defense during a crisis" food, is a very appetizing dish. Many local and foreign tourists now enjoy this culinary because of the uniqueness of its distinctive taste with a combination of rice, cassava mixed with other variants. Sela Rice is believed to also have better nutritional content than ordinary white rice.

Sela rice is actually very simple, only rice cooked with chopped sweet potatoes. Sometimes it's not only sweet potatoes, but also cassava. But the taste is of course somewhat different. Sweet potatoes provide a slightly sweet, distinctive taste, while cassava is tastier. In addition, sweet potatoes make rice softer. Nowadays, the processing of Sela rice varies. There are Sela rice mixed with jukut becek(vegetable), grago (small shrimp) and peanuts. There are additional sayur bejek bumbu kalas (meat cooked in coconut milk) chili sauceor sambal bongkot and shredded chicken meat. Besides Sela rice is also sometimes served with side dishes of ayam betutu, sate kulit ayam, pindang tongkol, urap sayur kacang panjang with timun dan kacang merah, sambal matah and sambal teri (chicken betutu, chicken skin skewers, boiled cob, urap or salad containing long bean, cucumber and red beans, with sambal or chili sauce and chili anchovy. Sela rice is usually served wrapped in banana leaf.

If you are in Bali, take the time to sample this Sela Rice which local usually eat for breakfast and is usually widely sold in traditional markets.