Bitterballen

Bitterballs are typically Dutch, we eat them almost every party in what we celebrate.
Think of a birthday, a wedding, a bachelor party or just when you come to visit each other. Also when you go out to find them in a bar, or after a football game in the canteen.
So we Dutch take every opportunity to eat bitterballs.

Ingredients :

500 grams of beef
200 grams butter
50 grams of flour
3 beef bouillon cubes
nutmeg
3 dl lukewarm water
3 eggs
1 pack of roughly breadcrumbs
Oil to fry the bitterballs in

Directions : 

Cut the beef into small pieces.
Melt the butter in a pan and fry the beef until nicely browned.
Add the water and heat it, when it is hot enough add the bouillon cubes.
Stir well and put the lid on the pan, let the meat simmer about 3 hours.
Stir about once every half hour through the beef and make sure you put it on a low heat so the beef does not burn.

Take after 3 hours of simmering the beef with a slotted spoon from the pan and place it on the cutting board.
Now draw the beef with 2 forks apart.
When the meat has completely taken apart, (very fine threads of beef) add the meat to the pan where the fragrant broth is still standing.
Increase the heat slightly ..
Season to taste some nutmeg.
Take a cup of the flour and stir it slowly through a bit of lukewarm water until a smooth liquid paste is created.
Slowly pour the paste to the beef and stir well so that no clumping occurs. It is now a ragout.
Turn off the heat and let the ragout cool, when cool enough, put the ragout in the refrigerator and let it stand there for one day.
The butter solidifies again in the ragout and that's important to make the bitterballs.

The next day it's time to form the bitterballs.
Put 3 plates ready on one plate  whisk 3 eggs, on the other breadcrumbs and put  on the last plate a little flour.
Get your fingers through the flour, get some  ragout out of the  pot and make a ball of about 4 to 5 cm.
Roll the ball in the breadcrumbs, then roll through the egg and roll once again through the breadcrumbs.
Repeat these steps until there is no more ragout.
You bitterballs are now ready to be fried or to be frozen.
You can keep the bitterballs in the freezer for a while.

Take for 1 person about 5 bitterballs and fry them in oil at 180 degrees for about 4 to 5 minutes.
Do not fry to much bitterballs at once.

Serve the bitterballs with some mustard or mayonnaise.
Enjoy a typical Dutch delicacy.