Spicy Speculaar Dutch Meatballs

kiwidutch's Note:

This one uses the Speculaas spice mix that is usually uses for cookies. The recipe is adapted from the AH supermarket chain magazine. It's an appetizer, and I think would be nice served with a selection of things on toothpicks. I'm not sure if you have a name for ketjap manis in English but it's an Indonesian sweet soya sauce and sambal badjak is a hot indonesian sauce made from chilies and onions. The spices mentioned are supposed to be Speculaaskruiden which is a spice mix powder for cookies and I will update the recipe as soon as I can get it added to the Kitchen dictionary.

• Total Time: 30 mins
• Prep Time: 30 mins
• Cook Time: 0 mins

Ingredients:

Servings: 6

• 4 slices thin bacon
• 3 speculaas (cookies)
• 400 g ground beef (14 ounces)
• 1 ½ teaspoons spices (speculaas)
• 3 tablespoons ketjap manis (not sure if you have a name for this in English but it's an Indonesian sweet soya sauce)
• 1 tablespoon sambal bajak , hot Indonesian sauce made from chile
• 1 tablespoon butter

Directions:

1. Cut the bacon into very thin strips.
2. Ground the cookies into fine crumbs and mix them with the speculaar spice powder, ketjap, sambal and bacon, then mix all of it throughly with the ground beef.
3. Roll the mixture into balls (about 24 of them).
4. Heat the butter in a large pan and cook for about 10 minutes on a low heat until golden brown and cooked though.
5. Serve while warm with a little extra sambal.

Reviews

[RonaNZ]

I think I'll rename these as Spectacular Spicy Dutch Meatballs. I saved some speculaas cookies (made from Kiwidutch's recipe) to make these and used the same spice mix as in the cookie recipe. I could get sweet soya sauce easily here but I think you could substitute ordinary soya sauce mixed with treacle or molasses. For the hot sauce, I used sambal asli - don't know what the difference is but it's a take-your-head-off hot sauce. These meatballs have a very interesting flavour, sweet and spicy as well as hot. We served this with plain soya sauce for saltiness rather than more hot sauce. They were hot enough already. My daughter's verdict - hits all the flavour centres on your tongue! The only problem is that I don't think there will be much left over for lunch tomorrow!