Spicy Meat Balls
Serve these spicy little patties — Pergedel Djawa — with egg noodles and chilli sambal.
Ingredients
- 1cm / ½in cube shrimp paste (blachan)
- 1 large onion, roughly chopped
- 1-2 fresh red chillies, seeded and chopped
- 2 garlic cloves, crushed
- 15ml / 1 tbsp coriander seeds
- 5ml / 1 tsp cumin seeds
- 450g / 1lb lean minced beef
- 10ml / 2 tsp dark soy sauce
- 5ml / 1 tsp dark brown sugar
- juice of 1½ lemons
- a little beaten egg
- vegetable oil, for shallow frying
- salt and ground black pepper
- chilli sambal, to serve
- 1 green and 2 fresh red chillies, to garnish
Preparation
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- Wrap the shrimp paste (blachan) in a piece of foil and warm in a frying pan for 5 minutes, turning a few times. Unwrap and put in a food processor.
- Add the onion, chillies and garlic to the food processor and process until finely chopped. Set aside. Dry fry the coriander and cumin seeds in a hot frying pan for 1 minute, to release the aroma. Tip the seeds into a mortar and grind with a pestle.
- Put the meat in a large bowl. Stir in the onion mixture. Add the ground spices, soy sauce, brown sugar, lemon juice and beaten egg. Season to taste.
- Shape the meat mixture into small, even-size balls, and chill these for 5-10 minutes to firm them up.
- Heat the oil in a wok or large frying pan and fry the meat balls for 4-5 minutes, turning often, until cooked through and browned. You may have to do this in batches.
- Drain the meat balls on kitchen paper, and then pile them on to a warm serving platter or into a large serving bowl. Finely slice the green chilli and one of the red chillies and scatter over the meat balls. Garnish with the remaining red chilli, if you like. Serve with the Chilli Sambal (see below) handed round separately.
VARIATION
Minced beef is traditionally used for this dish, but pork, lamb — or even turkey —mince would also be good.
COOK'S TIP
When processing the shrimp paste (blachan), onion, chillies and garlic, do not process for too long, otherwise the onion will become too wet and spoil the consistency of the meat balls.
Serves 4-6.