Bakso Campur Recipe (Indonesian Mixed Meatballs Soup)

Bakso is such a staple meatballs soup in Indonesia and enjoyed by people at any ages. It’s important to eat it with sambal bakso. I’ll post the sambal bakso soon.

I grew up with bakso Malang style. When I was a kid, I recalled I went to Jakarta for the first time and tasted the different style of bakso, Mie Baso. I liked it right away since it enhanced with vegetables such as bean sprouts and yuey choy.

In this post, I combined the bakso Malang and baso Jakarta.

Bakso Malang consists many things such as bakso (meatballs), fried wontons, steamed wontons, tahu bakso (stuffed meat tofu), fried bakso, meat spring roll and innards sometimes. On the other hand, Mie Baso Jakarta is more simple. It consists bakso (meatballs), egg noodle or rice vermicelli, bean sprouts, and yuey choy.

To make the meatballs is very labour intensive. If you can find Asian meatballs at any Asian grocers close to your house, it will be easier for you. However, I sometimes like making my own meatballs.

Bakso Campur
– Indonesian Mixed Meatballs Soup –

Ingredients:
Beef Broth
8 L water air
3 kg beef marrow
1 bulb of garlics
15 cm canesugar stick
salt
white peppercorn

Chicken Oil
chicken fat/skin
garlic
ginger

Bakso or Baso (Meatballs)
1 kg frozen beef, cut into pieces*
1 tbsp minced shallot
2 tbsp minced garlic
1 tsp chicken oil
2 egg whites
salt, sugar, and ground white pepper as you like
10 tbsp tapioca starch
1 – 2 tsp baking powder => I substituted for 0.25% emulsion powder “Accord” of beef weight = 2.5 g
ice cubes
beef broth
*it’s easier to cut the beef while it’s frozen

Tahu Bakso/Baso (Meat Stuffed Tofus)
tofu puff
meat paste from meatball ingredients

Pangsit Kukus (Steam Wontons)
meat paste from meatballs ingredients or use another filling at my old post of pangsit
wonton skins

Pangsit Goreng (Fried Wontons)
wonton skins
oil for deep-frying

Directions:
Beef Broth
Combine all ingredients, bring to a boil. Let it simmer for a while until it’s ready to be used.

Chicken Oil
Combine and place all ingredients for chicken oil in a pan. Bake in the oven at 300F until the skin/fat crispy and you see the oil in a pan. Transfer the oil to a glass jar.

Bakso (Meatballs)
1. Stir fry 1 tbsp shallot and 1 tbsp garlic with chicken oil.
2. Combine frozen beef pieces, shallot and garlic mixture, 1 tbsp garlic, egg whites, ground white pepper, salt and sugar. Process them in a food processor until smooth.
3. Transfer all mixture into a bowl and keep it in a freezer for 20 minutes.
4. Take the bowl out of the freezer, knead the mixture with hand and add crushed ice cubes for 15 minutes.
5. Add tapioca starch and knead again for 15 minutes
6. In a big pot, heat the broth (don’t let the broth boil, about 80C)
7. Scoop with 2 teaspoons, make round balls. Drop the meatballs in the broth,when it float it’s done.

Tahu Bakso/Baso (Meat-Stuffed Tofu)
Cut to make a small hole on tofus. Fill with the meat paste. Steam until the filling is cooked.

Pangsit Kukus (Steamed Wontons)
1. Lay a wonton wrapper in front of you. Wet the edges.
2. Put 2 to 3 teaspoons of filling in the middle, taking care not to get too close to the edges. Gather up the edges of the wrapper and gently pleat so that it forms a basket shape.

Pangsit Goreng (Fried Wontons)
Fried wontons can be with filling or without. If you choose the filling ones, go take a look my previous post (how to make pangsit goreng). No filling, all you need is deep fry the skins.

Serving:
Blanch yuey choy and bean sprouts. In a bowl, place meatballs, tofus, steamed wontons, blanched yuey choy and bean sprouts. Add ladles of broth over. Place the fried wonton on the side. Enjoy bakso with sambal bakso.