Bakso – Meatballs on the Go: Indonesia

One of the foods with Chinese culinary overtones is bakso, which literally means pork ball in some Chinese dialects. Originating from northern China the pork meatball came rolling down into Southeast Asia and set foot in Indonesia some 20 years ago.

It was the younger set, like teenagers coming out of school and waiting for a bus who would stop at the mi bakso (noodles and bakso) vendor who would park his cart strategically near the school entrance. Being hungry they seldom ate only one bowl but a second bowl followed whilst chatting with their friends. And from that teenager habit came a new socially accepted term nge-bakso meaning chatting or dating whilst savoring bakso.

It seemed that the word bak, which means pork was ignored and it then became bakso ayam, made of chicken or bakso ikan made from fish and bakso sarang burung from swallow nest. Now Indonesian bakso has a certain international fame in culinary know-how and though made somewhat differently to the original.

I met a lady from Holland who was keen to look for a shop where she could buy fresh good-quality meatballs to bring back to the land of windmills. “Can I freeze them?”, she asked me. “You see, I will only return to Indonesia next year.” I actually did not know what to say, because even on the bakso packages sold here in supermarkets there is no expiry date!

The Indonesian bakso has a chewy texture and sometimes when eating lesser quality bakso one has the feeling of biting into a rubber ball that goes from one side of the mouth to another.

Once I spoke to a women who owned a bakso store which delivers minced meat to the people who made the finely ground meat into round meatballs of medium quality. The ground meat has been mixed with seasonings and tapioca flour in the quantity of five kilograms of beef to one kilogram of tapioca flour which gives the chewy texture to the bakso. She said that she needed 20 kilograms of meat every evening to supply her clients. She also adds baking soda so that next to being chewy the bakso is also a bit puffy.

Actually there are various kinds of bakso in Indonesia. The small ones which are smaller than a golf ball, then a larger one, as big as a golf ball and then the super bakso tenis, as big as a tennis ball. In the largest bakso a hardboiled egg is covered with the minced meat mixture. The bakso tenis hails from East Java and in its place of origin it is also called bakwan– creating many misunderstandings for people of other regions who call corn or vegetable fritters bakwan and of course are very surprised when instead of fritters they are served gigantic bakso or meatballs.

Bakso tennis is only made from minced beef.

Bakso is actually one of the most versatile means of setting up a noodle business. Just make a noodle soup and put some bakso in it. But those chewy balls are actually not the same, some are colored a bit reddish with food coloring and some are brownish because of the addition of sweet soy sauce in the preparation process. A bakso vendor, in answer to my question whether his noodle and bakso business helped him to make both ends meet, said that he earned more than expected when he posted himself at places where young people are waiting in groups.

When bakso first appeared here, it was considered a food for those who could not afford to spend much money, but bakso slowly stepped up the culinary and social ladder because its aficionados were not only schoolchildren, but their parents too.

Some of them even set up bakso factories and produce bakso in great quantities. And even on the wedding buffets of the upper social class in larger cities, bakso is a popular dish.

But the best propaganda for bakso was when during the election some years ago, the President served his guests mi bakso, saying that it is one of his favorite foods.

Well, it’s bakso, meatballs on the go!

Suryatini N. Ganie