Bakso Bakwan (Indonesian Meatball Soup)

Being far from home country challenges me to alternate all my favorite food. In Indonesia, I can simply call street vendors who sell this soup very easily in front of my house. Even more, I become challenged due to COVID-19 pandemic and of course, my family and I are very afraid to go outside at this moment. I must create many creative alternatives to satisfy my family. Therefore in this challenge, I will share my alternative recipe, so you can cook easily.

But being limited to the ingredient of making favorite dishes does not mean being limited in creating the favorite ones.

Here I post 3 versions of meatball soup, which every soup has its own unique taste.

The only difference is how to make the meatball and side dish.

Ingredients:

1 clove Garlic

Red onion or Shallot, sliced thin

½ Candlenut

Beef and Asian Beef Meatball, for version #1, you can buy the meatball at Asian Grocery Store

150 gr ground beef, for version #2

Potatoes, for version #3

Noodles

2 large eggs, only use the egg white and little of yolk

Green onion, chopped finely

Corn oil/ vegetable oil/ canola oil

Flour

2 tablespoons of Tapioca starch

Celery, optional, just for garnish

Boil water in the saucepan. After boiling, put the noodles and stir with chopsticks until noodles are soft and cooked through. Bring out the noodles by using strainer from the saucepan. Set aside.

Alternative Substitution:

If you do not have noodles in your home, you can use rice stick, vermicelli, rice noodles, or omit this step.

First, slice red onion or shallot thinly. Add salt and mix them together. In the saucepan, pour some oils into it. Wait until the oils become hot. Add the red onion. Fry it.

For first version, the soup consists of top-round beef, Asian Beef Meatball, crispy scrambled egg, no tofu, and no wonton wrapper. The result will be like this.

Boil water in the saucepan. After boiling, put the beef into the water. The best beef to use is beef shank. It is juicy and fatty. Because I have lack ingredient due to COVID-19, I only use top-round beef, so it is not too fatty or juicy. Crush garlic and candlenut with crusher until soft and put them to the soup. Unfortunately, there is no substitute for candlenut. If you omit the candlenut, the taste will be different.

Cut the meatball as shown in the picture. By doing this, it will enlarge the meatball and make it more cooked through. Add the meatball to the soup.

Separate the egg white and yolk. Only use a little bit of yolk. Add salt and pepper. Beat them together until blended. Heat oil in the frying pan and pour half of the egg mixture. Cook until the egg are cooked through. Do this twice. Set aside.

Cut the egg scramble as shown. Prepare some flour into the bowl and add the egg scramble into the flour. Mix the egg scramble until incorporated.

Heat the oil in the frying pan with medium heat. Put one by one the egg scramble to the frying pan, but do not overcrowding the pan. Fry them until golden brown. Flip and make sure both sides golden brown.

Put the Cook Crispy Scrambled Egg to the bowl and set aside. It becomes the side dish.

Add some green onion, salt, sugar, white pepper, sesame oil, soy sauce, and fried onion to the soup.

Cook until the soup boiling. Remove from the heat.

Grab the noodle. Take some meatballs and crispy scramble egg. Put them on the bowl. Garnish with green onion and fried onion.

Ground Beef Meatball

In this alternative, make meatball from ground beef. In a bowl, simply mix well the ground beef with tapioca starch, salt, sesame oil and pepper until just combined. Shape the mixture into meatballs. Boil in the boiling water until cooked through.

Add some green onion, salt, sugar, white pepper, sesame oil, soy sauce, and fried onion to the soup.

Cook until the soup boiling. Remove from the heat.

In this version, I boiled the rice stick instead of noodle. Grab the rice stick. Take some meatballs. Put them on the bowl. Garnish with green onion and fried onion.

Potato Meatball

For this version, make meatball with vegan version. Cut some potatoes and boil in the boiling water. After the potatoes become tender, take them out and crush the potatoes until soft. In this alternative recipe, you can simply use potato or you can add some other vegetables like carrots and green onion or other as you desire. I used potato, carrot and green onion in the meatball mixture. Add some flour, salt and pepper to the mixture. Mix them well. Shape it into meatball and fry it in the heat oil until golden brown.

The step is the same with other version for making the soup. But in this version, I fry some sheets of wonton wrapper. To make it, just fry the wonton wrapper to the heat oil in high heat until golden brown. Grab the noodles. Take some meatballs and fried wonton. Put them on the bowl. Garnish with green onion, celery and fried onion.

Here is the final result of 3 alternative meatball soups that I share in this instructables. No matter how limited the ingredient does not mean limiting our creativity in creating our favorite dishes. I hope you like and enjoy the cooking.

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