Oret — Bali, Indonesia

Oret is a Balinese blood sausage: minced meat and grated coconut worked into the same base-genep spice paste used across Balinese cooking, bound with fresh blood, then packed into a cleaned intestine casing and cooked until firm before being finished over a grill. It is reported from Bali as a side dish and market food, standing close to the island's better-known lawar, the mixed minced-meat and coconut dishes that are sometimes also colored and bound with blood. Oret is generally treated as the sausage-cased branch of that same blood-and-spice tradition rather than a loose, spooned dish. To prepare it, a paste of shallots, garlic, chilies, turmeric, and ginger is fried until fragrant and worked, once cooled, into minced meat and grated coconut. Fresh blood is folded in to bind and color the mixture, which is then packed into a cleaned length of intestine, tied off, and gently simmered until set. The cooked sausage is finished briefly over direct heat, which firms the casing and adds a light char before it is sliced. Set beside spooned lawar made with the same spice paste and blood, oret is defined chiefly by its casing and its two-stage cooking: a first gentle simmer to set the filling, followed by grilling or pan-searing, which gives it a firmer bite and a charred edge that the loose, freshly mixed lawar does not share.