Crab meatballs (Chinese-Indonesian)
I love crab meat. This Beb Vuyk recipe with canned crab meat, some potatoes and mushrooms looks easy. Truly a dish that you can make with leftovers and food from your pantry. Besides all this, they are delicious.
Enough for 2 people and done in 45 minutes.
Crab meatballs #510 (Chinese-Indonesian) from Beb Vuyk’s Groot Indonesisch Kookboek, page 407.
Ingredients
1 small can of crab
100 grams of mushrooms
200 grams chopped leek
1 large boiled potato
1 egg
oil
bread-crumbs
Spices
juice of one clove of garlic
pepper
salt
monosodium glutamate (vetsin)
Chop the mushrooms and leeks as fine as possible. Then mix with the crab meat, crushed potatoes, beaten egg, salt, pepper, garlic juice and vetsin.
Turn mixture into small balls the size of a walnut. Roll them in the breadcrumbs and fry in oil until golden brown. Serve with a sweet-and sour sauce (see Chapter Sauces).
This is an easy dish. Chop the ingredients well because it must be shaped into balls later. I use my ‘Chinese knife’. This big chopping knife is widely used in Chinese cooking. It seems to me a delicious combination by the way; mushrooms and crab meat.
Beb says in her recipe ‘use the juice of one clove of garlic’. I press one clove with my garlic press. I would not know how else I would make juice out of garlic ;-).
I rarely ever use monosodium glutamate (flavor enhancer), but it’s okay if you want to. There has been much research on monosodium glutamate and a bad impact on humans never has been found (used to be an urban myth that it is bad for your blood pressure). I seldom use it because the flavor of great ingredients is often enough and an additional reinforcement is not usually necessary.
With my hands I make the small meatballs. The potato and egg make it all stick together well. The breadcrumbs will make the balls crispy when fried.
The balls do not need long in the pan. The ingredients are already cooked (like the canned crab) or do not need much frying. I bake the crab balls until they are golden brown and crisp. Enak!
In terms of sauce I do it the easy way today. I serve my crab meat balls with chili sauce from a bottle. Next time I make fresh sauce as Beb suggests from her chapter Sauces. Now we’re hungry ;-). Let’s eat.
Beb Vuyk, best known for her Groot Indonesisch Kookboek (Great Indonesian Cook Book), was much more than a great cook. She belongs to the most important Dutch-Indonesian (Indo) writers and journalists of her time. Check this out.
