Bitterballen - Dutch Meatballs

Indonesia was under Dutch colonial rule for a long time, and many Dutch recipes are now common in everyday Indonesian life. Among the many Dutch-influenced foods, bitterballen is easily at the top of my favorites.

Bitterballen has a crunchy golden brown skin encasing a soft and flavorful potato and beef mixture. You can serve them as a side dish, an appetizer, or as a snack to go with your afternoon tea or coffee. They are always served piping hot with a side of mayonnaise and chili sauce. ♥

Bitterballen ingredients

For the bitterballen itself, we will need butter, onion, white button mushroom, ground beef, all-purpose flour, milk, mashed potato, nutmeg, salt, ground white pepper, sugar, cheddar cheese, and Chinese celery.

You can also use regular celery instead of Chinese celery, but choose the thinner one with plenty of leaves.

For the coating, we will need bread crumbs (preferably panko) and eggs.

We usually serve bitterballen with a simple sauce by mixing mayonnaise and bottled chili sauce. You can use Sriracha, though I prefer Indonesian bottled chili sauce.

Part 1: Prepare bitterballen dough (ragout)

1. Sauté onion in butter

Melt butter in a frying pan over medium heat. Sauté onion until translucent.

2. Add mushrooms and ground beef

Add mushroom and cook until wilts. Then add ground beef and cook until no longer pink.

3. Add all-purpose flour and milk

Add all-purpose flour, and stir until the mixture clumps together. Slowly pour the milk, and keep stirring until the sauce is thick and smooth.

4. Add celery, cheddar, seasonings, and mashed potatoes

Add mashed potato, nutmeg, salt, ground pepper, sugar, cheddar, and celery leaves. Mix well, and cook until the sauce is dry with no standing liquid. Turn off the heat and set aside.

Part 2: Shape the meatballs

1. Shape into balls

Once the dough is cool enough to handle, shape it into round balls.

For appetizer/snack size meatballs, use a #60 cookie scoop (~ 1 tablespoon) to get about 40 meatballs from one recipe. I find that these are easier to serve as finger/party food.

Alternatively, you can use a medium-size cookie scoop (#40 cookie scoop / ~ 1 1/2 tablespoon) to get about 28 meatballs from one recipe.

2. Coat with panko and eggs

Coat each meatball with bread crumbs, followed with lightly beaten egg, and finally, another coat of bread crumbs.

I love using panko breadcrumbs for its crispy finish, but you can use regular bread crumbs too.

If you don’t have enough breadcrumbs, you can use all-purpose flour for the first coating, but please use bread crumbs for the final coat.

Part 3: Fry the meatballs

Fill a pot with at least 2 inches of oil. Heat the oil over medium heat until it reaches 170 Celsius (340 Fahrenheit).

Once the oil is hot, gently fry coated meatballs until golden brown and crispy. Please don’t crowd the pot to maintain the oil temperature. You will most likely need to fry the meatballs in batches.

Remove fried meatballs with a slotted spoon and drain over a wire rack/stainless steel strainer to remove excess oil.

Serve bitterballen immediately with mayo and chili sauce.

Storing and reheating bitterballen

Store any leftover bitterballen in an airtight container in the fridge for up to a week.

For longer storage, arrange fried meatballs on a lined baking sheet and freeze until solid, then transfer into a freezer-safe ziplock bag. You can store frozen bitterballen for up to 3 months.

To reheat, bake bitterballen in a 180 Celsius (350 Fahrenheit) preheated oven or a toaster oven to return them to a just-fried state of crispy goodness. It should take about 5-8 minutes for non-frozen meatballs, and about 10-13 minutes for frozen meatballs.

Please do not reheat bitterballen in a microwave since they will lose all the crispiness.