Course | Main |
---|---|
Place of origin | Indonesia, derived from the Chinese meatball |
Region or state | Nationwide |
Serving temperature | Hot |
Main ingredients | Ground beef, tapioca, noodle, rice vermicelli, beef broth, kailan, celery, salted vegetables, fried shallots |
Variations | Bakwan Malang, phở bò viên (Vietnamese noodle soup with meatballs), Chinese beef balls |
1 medium ball of bakso contains 21 mg cholesterol, 134 mg sodium, and 57 calories. [1] kcal | |
Bakso or baso is an Indonesian meatball, [2] or a meat paste made from beef surimi. [3] Its texture is similar to the Chinese beef ball, fish ball, or pork ball. The word bakso may refer to a single meatball or the complete dish of meatball soup. Mie bakso refers to bakso served with yellow noodles and rice vermicelli, while bakso kuah refers to bakso soup served without noodles.
Bakso can be found all across Indonesia, from street vendors to high-class restaurants. Along with soto , satay , and siomay , bakso is one of the most popular street foods in Indonesia. [4] Today, various types of ready-to-cook bakso are also available as frozen foods sold in supermarkets in Indonesia. It is usually eaten with noodles.
Bakso is commonly made from finely ground beef with a small quantity of tapioca flour and salt, however, bakso can also be made from other ingredients, such as chicken, pork, fish, or shrimp. [4] Unlike other meatball recipes, bakso has a consistent firm, dense, homogeneous texture due to the polymerization of myosin in the beef surimi.
As most Indonesians are Muslims and observe halal dietary laws, bakso usually is made from beef, chicken, or a mixture of beef with chicken. [3] In non-Muslim majority areas, such as in the Chinatowns of major cities and on the Hindu-majority island of Bali, pork bakso might be found. [5]
Traditionally the beef surimi paste or dough is made into balls by hand and boiled in hot water. After the meat is done, the meatballs are dried and served or refrigerated for later use. Pre-cooked bakso are usually displayed in the windows of street vendor carts.
Bakso is usually served in a bowl of beef broth, with yellow noodles, bihun (rice vermicelli), salted vegetables, tofu, egg (wrapped within bakso), Chinese broccoli, bean sprout, siomay or steamed meat dumpling, and crisp wonton, sprinkled with fried shallots and celery. Slices of bakso are often used and mixed as complements in mie goreng, nasi goreng , or cap cai recipes.
The name bakso originated from bak-so (肉酥, Pe̍h-ōe-jī :bah-so͘), the Hokkien pronunciation for "fluffy meat" or "minced meat". [6] This suggests that bakso has Indonesian Chinese cuisine origin. [7] Chinese influences is apparent in Indonesian food, such as bakmi , mie ayam , pangsit, mie goreng , kwetiau goreng , bakso, and lumpia . [8] Indeed, bakso texture is quite similar to Chinese beef balls, which are quite fluffy and have a homogenous texture. Although bakso has a Chinese Hokkien origin name, culinary experts suggest that it is likely that bakso was a mixture of culinary influences back in the colonial Dutch East Indies. Also in Indonesian, the term bola daging often refers to the Western or European style of meatballs, which is different in texture and elasticity compared to bakso. For example, Swedish meatballs are translated as bola daging Swedia in Indonesian. The soup and the noodles probably originated in China, but the meatball may have come from the Dutch, who colonized Indonesia in the 19th century. [3]
Despite its possible Chinese origin, bakso seems to have undergone localization, especially into Chinese Indonesian and Javanese cuisine. Today, most of the bakso vendors are native Javanese from Wonogiri (a town near Solo) and Malang. [9] Bakso Solo and Bakso Malang are the most popular variants; the name comes from the city it comes from, Solo in Central Java and Malang in East Java. Bakso Solo is usually served with yellow noodles and rice vermicelli in beef broth, while Bakso Malang usually is enriched with tofu and crispy fried wonton. In Malang, bakso bakar (roasted bakso) is also popular.
In Bandung, West Java, there is a type of bakso called bakso cuanki, which is similar to bakso Malang. It can contain various types of bakso ingredients; such as bakso aci, siomay dumpling, boiled wonton, fried wonton, and fried bakso, served with scallion and broth soup. [10]
Indonesia has developed numerous bakso variants, usually differing in shape, size, texture, ingredients, and fillings. [11]
Bakso stalls usually served bottles of sauces, condiments, additions, and garnishing. Clients may add these condiments according to their personal preferences. The following condiments and accompaniments are often added to a bowl of bakso:
Bakso is one of the most popular street foods in Indonesian cities and villages alike. [4] Travelling street vendors, either by carts or bikes are often frequenting residential areas in Indonesia, while bakso warung and humble tent food stalls are often sprung on street sides in Indonesian cities. Bakso came to international attention when United States President Barack Obama remembered it as one of his favourite foods from his childhood in Indonesia, and mentioned it in his speech. [2] [3] It was also part of a task in The Amazing Race Asia 1, The Amazing Race Australia 1 and The Amazing Race 28 where teams had to either sell and/or eat bakso.
The traveling meatball vendor is often associated with intelligence undercover activity. On social media, there are also many memes depicting meatball vendors communicating through walkie-talkies. According to Ridlwan Habib, an intelligence observer, the profession of mobile food traders such as meatball workers is often used by members of the Detective or Densus 88 to spy on terrorist activities or other suspicious criminal activities. [23] [24]
Similar meatball dishes can be found in other Southeast Asian cuisines, such as those in Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Singapore, as well as Chinese-style meatballs.
The dish is also similar to Vietnamese noodle soup with meatballs, phở bò viên . [25] [26] In Vietnam, Phở means noodle soup while Bò Viên is meatballs. [27] Phở Bò Viên is one of the versions of Pho dishes in Vietnam. It has been considered as the national dish of Vietnam. [28]
In Malaysia and Singapore, there is a similar meatball soup called bebola daging, which is a Malay translation of "meatball". Many recipes of bebola daging in Malaysia and Singapore are derived from either Western (Indian or European) or Eastern (Chinese) meatballs, such as bebola daging Masala which is derived from Indian cuisine influence. [29]
In the Philippines, meatballs are called almondigas or bola-bola, and are usually served in a misua noodle soup with toasted garlic, squash, and pork cracklings. Bola-bolas are also stewed or pan-fried until golden brown.
In the past, borax and formalin is often added to beef surimi mixture to preserve the produced bakso, and also to make bakso more chewy (from borax induced myosin cross-linking) with less usage of meat. [30] As a result, bakso is often listed by the Indonesian Food and Drug Administration as an unhealthy foodstuff. The country's Directorate of Consumer Protection warns of the risk of liver cancer caused by high consumption over 5–10 years. [31] The government issued Sodium tripolyphosphate as borax substitute. Today's bakso, frozen bakso being sold at supermarkets and traditional markets in Indonesia are borax free.
Indonesian cuisine is a collection of various regional culinary traditions that formed in the archipelagic nation of Indonesia. There are a wide variety of recipes and cuisines in part because Indonesia is composed of approximately 6,000 populated islands of the total 17,508 in the world's largest archipelago, with more than 1,300 ethnic groups.
Fish balls are balls made from fish paste which are then boiled or deep-fried. Similar in composition to fishcake, fish balls are often made from fish mince or surimi, salt, and a culinary binder such as tapioca flour, corn, or potato starch.
Noodle soup refers to a variety of soups with noodles and other ingredients served in a light broth. Noodle soup is a common dish across East Asia, Southeast Asia and the Himalayan states of South Asia. Various types of noodles are used, such as rice noodles, wheat noodles and egg noodles.
Chinese Indonesian cuisine is characterized by the mixture of Chinese with local Indonesian style. Chinese Indonesians, mostly descendant of Han ethnic Hokkien and Hakka speakers, brought their legacy of Chinese cuisine, and modified some of the dishes with the addition of Indonesian ingredients, such as kecap manis, palm sugar, peanut sauce, chili, santan and local spices to form a hybrid Chinese-Indonesian cuisine. Some of the dishes and cakes share the same style as in Malaysia and Singapore, known as Nyonya cuisine by the Peranakan.
Lo mein is a Chinese dish with noodles. It often contains vegetables and some type of meat or seafood, usually beef, chicken, pork, or shrimp. It may also be served with wontons, and it can also be eaten with just vegetables.
Bakmi or bami is a type of wheat based noodles derived from Chinese cooking tradition. It was brought to Indonesia by Chinese immigrants from Southern Chinese provinces like Fujian. It is typically prepared seasoned in soy sauce and topped with pork products, which is often substituted for other protein sources in predominantly Muslim Indonesia. Chinese-style wheat noodles has become one of the most common noodle dishes, especially in Southeast Asian countries which have significant Chinese populations and known by various names.
Mie goreng, also known as bakmi goreng, is an Indonesian stir-fried noodle dish. It is made with thin yellow noodles stir-fried in cooking oil with garlic, onion or shallots, fried prawn, chicken, beef, or sliced bakso (meatballs), chili, Chinese cabbage, cabbages, tomatoes, egg, and other vegetables. Ubiquitous in Indonesia, it is sold by food vendors from street hawkers (warungs) to high-end restaurants.
Javanese cuisine is the cuisine of Javanese people, a major ethnic group in Indonesia, more precisely the province of Central Java, Yogyakarta and East Java.
Batagor is a Sundanese dish from Indonesia, and popular in Southeast Asia, consisting of fried fish dumplings, usually served with peanut sauce. It is traditionally made from minced tenggiri, although other types of seafood such as tuna, mackerel, and prawn may also be used. The fish paste is subsequently stuffed into wonton skins or filled into tofu, and then deep-fried in palm oil.
A meatball is ground meat (mince) rolled into a ball, sometimes along with other ingredients, such as bread crumbs, minced onion, eggs, butter, and seasoning. Meatballs are cooked by frying, baking, steaming, or braising in sauce. There are many types of meatballs using different types of meats and spices. The term is sometimes extended to meatless versions based on vegetables or fish; the latter are also commonly known as fish balls.
Bakwan is a vegetable fritter or gorengan that are commonly found in Indonesia. Bakwan are usually sold by traveling street vendors. The ingredients are vegetables; usually beansprouts, shredded cabbages and carrots, battered and deep fried in cooking oil. To achieve crispy texture, the batter uses a mixture of flour, corn starch and sago or tapioca. In West Java bakwan is known as bala-bala and in Semarang is called badak. It is similar to Japanese yasai tenpura, Korean pajeon, Bruneian cucur, Burmese A-kyaw or Filipino ukoy.
Kwetiau goreng is an Indonesian style of stir fried flat rice noodle dish. It is made from noodles, locally known as kwetiau, which are stir-fried in cooking oil with garlic, onion or shallots, beef, chicken, fried prawn, crab or sliced bakso (meatballs), chili, Chinese cabbage, cabbages, tomatoes, egg, and other vegetables with an ample amount of kecap manis. In Asia, kwetiau is available in two forms, dried and fresh. Its recipe is quite similar to another Chinese Indonesian favourite, mie goreng, with the exception of replacing yellow wheat noodles for flat rice noodles.
Mie ayam, mi ayam, or bakmi ayam is a common Indonesian dish of seasoned yellow wheat noodles topped with diced chicken meat. It is derived from culinary techniques employed in Chinese cuisine. In Indonesia, the dish is recognized as a popular Chinese Indonesian dish, served from simple travelling vendor carts frequenting residential areas, humble street-side warung to restaurants.
Indonesian street food is a collection of ready-to-eat meals, snacks, fruits and drinks sold by hawkers or vendors at warung food stalls or food carts. Street food in Indonesia is a diverse mix of local Indonesian, Chinese, and Dutch influences. Indonesian street food are usually cheap, offer a great variety of food of different tastes, and can be found on every corner of the city.
Kwetiau ayam, kuetiau ayam or sometimes kwetiau ayam kuah is a common Chinese Indonesian dish of seasoned flat rice noodles topped with diced chicken meat. It is often described as a kwetiau version of the popular mie ayam, and especially common in Indonesia, and can trace its origin to Chinese cuisine.
Indonesian noodles are a significant aspect of Indonesian cuisine which is itself very diverse. Indonesian cuisine recognizes many types of noodles, with each region of the country often developing its own distinct recipes.
Mie bakso is an Indonesian noodle soup dish consists of bakso meatballs served with yellow noodles and rice vermicelli. This dish is well known in Chinese Indonesian, Javanese and Malay cuisine. Mie bakso is almost identical with soto mie, only this dish has meatball instead of slices of chicken meat.