Indonesian Lamb meatballs

by Pauline Chavannes de Senerpont Domis · Published November 22, 2025 · Updated November 23, 2025

These lamb meatballs are originally made with mutton, but I can’t get that easily. Now, I love mutton. Have you heard of satay kambing? That’s mutton satay. Much stronger in flavor than chicken or pork. I think kambing goes really well with ketjap (soy sauce). I also drizzle some ketjap over these lamb meatballs when serving. It really makes them extra delicious.

This dish is ready in 40 minutes and serves 3 people.

Lamb Meatballs

Mutton Meatballs #180
Beb Vuyk’s Groot Indonesisch Kookboek, page 174.

Ingredients

1/4 kg lean mutton
1/4 block of santen (coconut cream)
1 large boiled potato
1 small egg
oil
breadcrumbs

Spices

2 tablespoons finely chopped onions
1 clove of garlic, chopped
2 teaspoons coriander (ketumbar)
pepper
salt
nutmeg

Grind the lamb meat in to a meat grinder along with the santen in pieces.
Then add the potato.
Mix the egg into the mixture, along with the onions, garlic, ground meat spices and coriander.
Form small meatballs, roll them through the breadcrumbs, and brown them in the oil.

This minced meat can also be baked in an ovenproof dish. Moisten the raw ground meat slightly by stirring in 2 tablespoons of milk or stock.

I live in Haarlem, in the Netherlands and we have a great shop at the Botermarkt: Mabrouk. There’s also a Muslim butcher in the shop and they always have lamb (and often mutton too). Perfect for many of my Indonesian recipes.

Don’t over-knead

I use sweet potato, just because I feel like it, but regular potatoes work fine as well for these meatballs. I also love red onions, so you’ll see a lot of them in my recipes. I don’t grind the meat; my butcher does that for me. I mix all the ingredients at once. Don’t over-knead the ground meat, or it will get a different texture. It’s nice to keep everything light and airy.

Beb doesn’t specify how much nutmeg, salt, and pepper is needed. For this 250 grams of ground meat, I use 1 teaspoon nutmeg, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper.

Now I form them into balls and place them in the pan. I use a little butter in the pan for color. I like that with lamb meatballs.

In baking dish

Beb also tells us that this dish is perfect to make in the oven. I stirred in some milk and put it in a small bowl in the oven at 180 degrees Celsius for about 25 minutes. It’s delicious and perfect for the last bit of ground meat I couldn’t fit in the pan!