Bakso – Meatball Soup
Origin: Indonesia
Ingredients
- 500 gr beef, good quality without fat, minced
- 100 gr tapioca flour or corn starch
- 1 pc egg
- 3 tbsp fried shallots
- 2 gloves garlic
- ½ tsp pepper
- 1 tsp salt or to taste
- 1 tsp sugar or to taste
- 150 ml ice water
For the soup
- 2 l water
- 3 gloves garlic, bruised
- ½ tsp pepper powder
- 1 pc onion, finely chopped
- 1 pc spring onion, cut about 1 cm long
- 1 tsp beef broth powder
- salt to taste
Pangsit/Fried Wonton
- 10 pc fried wonton wrapper (for frying)
Garnish & Condiments
- fried shallots
- 2 pc spring onions or flat-leaf parsley, finely sliced
- asian noodles / glass noodles, boil to al dente, set to drain
- coy sum, blanched, set to drain
- kecap manis
- tomato ketchup
- sambal Oelek
Bakso – Meatball Soup
This is the famous everday street food in Indonesia: Bakso. You will find it everywhere in the whole nation !! Once you taste it, you will never get enough!!. In Indonesia Bakso will be eaten anywhere, anyplace, anytime, starting from early morning as breakfast until midnight as a supper soup lol 😉Hmmm… It tastes superb & delicious. I think it's hard to find any Indonesian who has never eaten Bakso meatball soup once in a lifetime!!There is no top secret of making tasty & yummy Bakso, not require special trick nor a MSG!! Only one thing : Just add fried shallots to the daugh. I ensure you, the meatballs will taste simply delicious!!Important Tips: 1. Choose the good quality of beef which contains no fat & mince yourself at home. Do not buy minced beef which sold in supermarkets because this type of meat contains a lot of fat & the meatballs will be fallen apart when it boiled.2. At the beginning of boiling process, prepare 1 pc at first, boil & wait until the meatball well cooked and floating on the water surface, then taste it. Adjust the seasoning, add salt or sugar if necessary & mix the whole dough once again. Try to boil once more, taste it and so on until the flavor suit to your taste, then you can form the rest of the meatballs and boil them all. It is important to follow this step because once you've got them boiled, but the meatballs taste bland, then you can not rework them back or reverse the process. In a short word, your meatballs will go to the trash bin for sure!! I'm telling you from my own experience :-(.3. Be careful in choosing wonton wrapper. There are two kinds of wonton wrappers: For wonton soup and for fried wonton. If you use the wrong type, I guarantee you, within 2 hours, your fried wonton will be soft & limb eventually. (from personal experience as well ha ha … what a pity me).So enough with this seminar of making Bakso Meatball Soup. The rest…I wish you a happy cooking & Good Luck
Instructions
for Bakso Meatball Soup
- Making Bakso: Put seasoning ingredients for bakso: garlic, fried shallots, salt & sugar in a mortar/grinding stone and grind until smooth.(If you use blender: put the above ingredients in a blender, add 50 ml ice water then blend until smooth).
- Grind until smooth.
- Transfer the spice mixture into a large bowl, add the tapioca flour or corn starch, mix well with with a wooden spoon. Put a aside.
- Put the sliced beef & egg into the food processor and blend until smooth.
- Blend until shooth.
- Mix the tapioca mixture and beef paste, add the remaining ice water and process once again until the dough well mixed. You can also add the tapioka mixture into the beef paste and mix them together in the food processor.
- That's how it should look like.
- Meantime bring 3 lt / 6 pints water in a large saucepan to boil. Add 2 tsp salt. Onced it boiled, adjust the stove into medium heat.
- Form one of a meatball, let it boil & cook. Taste it and adjust the seasoning accordingly as I explain on the above tips. Put aside about 3 tbsp of dough for wonton filling if necessary.
- Form the rest of the dough into a round shape and boil until well cooked. The meatballs are finished when they are floating to the water surface.
Making Fried Wonton
- Place the wrapper in front of you, with one corner at the bottom so that it looks like a diamond. Put 1 tsp of the meatball dough somewhere in the middle of the wrapper.
- Fold it over to form a triangle shape.
- Pick up the 2 ends that have 45 degrees angle (the ones where the fold is), pinch & seal them with a dab of water on your finger.
- Deep-fry the wonton until golden brown.
Making the Soup
- Boil the broth or water. Stir-fry the garlic & chopped onion for the soup until fragant. Add it to the broth.
- Add the spring onions, salt, pepper & broth powder. Adjust the seasoning, add salt & sugar if necessary.
- Add the coy sum and blanch shortly until just wilted. If necessary take away the blanched coysum from the pan and store separately too prevent overcooked.
Serving Method
- Put the noodle & vegetables in a bowl. Add the meatballs and pour in the soup over it. Garnish with sliced spring onion, fried shallot & fried wonton.
- Last but not least add kecap manis, tomato ketchup, sambal & salt to taste.
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