Description
Bakso is a meatball soup common throughout Indonesia, and is a comfort food for millions. This recipe uses frozen meatballs with a home-made broth that’s easy and delicious.
Ingredients
Scale
For the broth:
- 500 gr a mix of beef bones and trimmings
- 7 cloves garlic, peeled.
- 1 tbsp white peppercorn
- 3 lt water
- 1 cube beef stock or ¼ tsp MSG
- 16 pcs ready to cook (frozen) meatballs
- Salt to taste
- 3 tbsp cooking oil
For the garnish:
- 1 bowl of cellophane noodles/yellow noodles/rice vermicelli, or a mix of them.
- Few stalks bok choy, washed, chopped, and blanched.
- 1 stalk celery, thinly chopped.
- 1 stalk spring onion, thinly chopped.
- Sambal sop/soto to taste.
- Fried shallots (optional) to taste.
- Vinegar or lime wedges to taste (optional)
- Tomato ketchup to taste (optional)
- Sweet soy sauce to taste (optional)
Instructions
- Wash the beef thoroughly, and bring to boil with 3 lt of water. Once the soup is boiling, reduce the heat to medium low. Discard any scum from the soup.
- Meanwhile, crush the garlic and peppercorns into a paste.
- Heat the cooking oil over medium flame, and saute the garlic paste until fragrant (around two minutes).
- Add the sauteed garlic to the soup.
- Add salt and the beef cube/MSG.
- Continue cooking soup for 1.5 hrs to 2 hrs.
- 10 minutes before the soup is done, add the beef balls and cook until done.
- Turn off the heat.
How to assemble the bakso:
- First, prepare the noodles according to the instructions in the packet.
- In an individual serving bowl, put a little bit of noodles as a base.
- Add the bok choy.
- Add a few pieces of bakso and ladle the soup.
- Garnish with celery, spring onions and fried shallots.
- Serve the sambal sop/soto, vinegar, tomato ketchup and sweet soy sauce on the side.
Notes
- Any bone can be used to make the soup, but my favorite is to use beef trimmings and leg bones.
- Once cooked, the beef broth can be frozen for later use. I love to make a big batch of the broth, so I will have a yummy homemade bakso bowl anytime I want it.
- When in Singapore, I like to buy Armiya beef balls. It has a good springy texture and tastes just like Indonesian meatballs. It’s available frozen in supermarkets.
Keywords: meatballs, beef balls, beef broth soup