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Dutch Meatballs & Gravy
In my country any recipe that starts with the word “Grandma’s” is a guaranty to success. It’s a universal rule: everything tastes better the way grandma made it.
I’ve received so many emails asking me for an authentic and traditional Dutch meatballs recipe. Crazy amount of emails! What’s the fascination for Dutch meatballs? Now let me start by saying there is no such thing. There are a gazillion different recipes out there. A lot of them use similar ingredients such as nutmeg and mustard, but mainly they’re family recipes with varying ingredients. They do have one thing in common: butter. Lots and lots of butter. Our traditional gravy differs from American gravy. You’ll see.
What I can give you is the recipe I grew up with. It’s not an exact one-on-one because certain ingredients such as Ketjap—a thick and sweet Indonesian soy sauce—can’t be purchased all over the world and it’s big part of the recipe as it lingered around my family.
But I found a work around … the recipe behind the cut comes pretty close to our family recipe! If you’re not a fan of nutmeg, you might want to opt out of this one!
Ingredients:
1 pound ground beef
2 tbsp sweet chili sauce
1/2 a tbsp ground nutmeg
2 tbsp coarse mustard
1/2 tsp white pepper
6 tbsp breadcrumbs
1 tbsp milk
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 egg
butter (lots of it)
1 cup beef broth
flour
Directions:
Start with 1 pound good-quality ground beef. Not hamburger, mind you, that comes from a different part of the cow.
Add 1 egg, salt to taste (we like them salty, so I add 1 1/2 tsp), 1/2 a tsp ground white pepper, a pinch of cayenne and 1/2 a tbsp ground nutmeg, mine wasn’t freshly grated or I’d still be grating. This seems like a lot of nutmeg but trust me, it works.
Tip: adding a finely minced small onion is also really tasty.
Wrecked my brain over a Ketjap substitute (any ideas?) and decided to go for 2 tbsp sweet chili sauce. It was perfect.
Add 1 tbsp milk and 2 tbsp coarse mustard. The milk makes the meat somehow taste better. Almost juicier. The mustard adds a lovely tang and slight flavor but doesn’t make it mustardy.
Now I know Paneer is also the name of an Indian cheese, but overhere it stands for breadcrumbs. Add 6 tbsp breadcrumbs.
Dig your hands in there and mix it all up. Make your hands slightly wet and form 4 to 5 meatballs. Make them firm. Really press them on all sides to remove as much of the air trapped inside as you possibly can. It’s the air that makes them crack during browning.
Note: I ran out of flour, but this is the moment you sprinkle a little flour all over each meatball!
You shouldn’t be afraid of butter in order to make Dutch meatballs, that’s for sure. Heat lots of it. This was roughly 3 oz.
As soon as the butter stops bubbling, add the meat balls and brown them on all sides. When they’re brown enough for your liking, pour in 1 cup of beef broth and pop the lid on. Reduce heat and simmer for 25 to 30 minutes, crack the lid slightly allowing moisture to escape.
Here’s what it looks like after 25 minutes. Now this is Dutch gravy. Loads of butter, meat juices and broth combined and cooked down. Fattening like crazy but oh-so good. You can add a little mustard (or ketjap) for extra flavor.
Serve with curly endive mash to get the full Dutch effect and drizzle lots of gravy on top.
Honey, I’m home!!
These meatballs are delicious as is, but what I can wake my guys for in the middle of the night is a meatball sandwich. It’s why I usually make a few extra and store them in the fridge. Slather some mayo on two slices of bread, top with cold meatball slices and a little ketchup and mustard. Yum.
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Lawdy. Heavenly to look at. I will do those. I will do those now.
Oh I am so making those this weekend!! They look devine! Hoping I can find ground beef as opposed to hamburger around here, most places do not label the difference but maybe I’ll try my local organic store.
I guess there must be some Dutch in my ancestry somewhere way back. From when I was a kid we always mixed our salad with our mashed potatoes and ate it that way. Wonderful crunch and the combination of the dressing with the potatoes really added to it. And so far as I know my whole ancestry is Welsh on the side of the family that did that. The rest is Scot and Irish. Don’t know how it came about but it is very common where I grew up. Maybe it is the Amish or Pennsylvania Dutch who resided in the area and had a huge influence on the cooking. I grew up right next to them in Ohio which has the biggest community of Amish in the world and we had their kind of cooking all the time.
Makes me wanna go Bon Appetit!!
Mmmm, that sounds delicious! I think I’ll make it for dinner tonight.
Just a quick question; do you know why sometimes your recipes have a beautiful little card that I can print out, and sometimes it’s just the entire text? I love those printable cards; they fit perfectly in my recipe book.
Love your blog and recipes!
@Rachel:
Unfortunately I don’t always have time to write and add one of those cards.
on top of spaghetti… all covered with cheese… I lost my poor meatballs…when somebody sneezed…
hmmm I always loved eating meatballs specially with spaghetti…
love this blog a lot.
Kay, they look delicious!
Hoi, Ja, dit zijn heerlijke gehaktballen. Ik maak ze bijna hetzelfde. Ik eet ze ook graag koud op brood en weet je wat dan lekker is om er op te sprenkelen? Maggi, de enige echte (Dit staat op het bruine flesje met geel/rood etiket) Dit smaakt zoooooooooooo lekker. En ik heb het zelfs hier in winkels in de VS gezien! Je kan hier alleen geen andijvie krijgen. En ik vind dat ook zo lekker.
Hi, Yes, these are delicious meatballs. I do make them about the same. And I love to serve them as cold sandwiches and then sprinkle a lot of drops of Maggi on the meat. It is a small brown bottle with a yellow/red label on it, which you can buy at Walmart at the soup-section :-) The only problem is, i cannot get andijvie / endive here. And I do miss that so much.
Those meatballs look nice and big and tasty!
Oh those look so good! I need to try this recipe!
In the States you can order Ketjap Manis and other “Dutch” foods from http://www.littledutchgirl.com
I order things from there quite often and have never been disappointed in product or service!
Making the meatballs tonight as a comfort food surprise for my husband. Serving with potatos and apple sauce! Just like his mum used to make (except mine will be edible!) :-P
Just finished eating supper and I have to say– my husband was very happy! He even said it was MUCH better than his mom’s. Thanks for the recipe! It’s a keeper!
Hi Kay
These turned out really good and were so easy to make. We had them for dinner and my family unanimously declared that these were the best meatballs ever!!!
@Nicole:
That’s a HUGE compliment, when a man tells me my meatballs are better than his mom’s :)
They are cooking right now for tomorrow’s dinneer and smell divine. To my horror someone ate most of my dutch mustard so i had to top it off with dijon. Thank goodness my ketjap was still there.
Hallo!
Lekker! I love my mom’s meatballs (from NL). She puts curry in them!
I have found something like Maggi here in the u.s. called “Aminos” (amino acids), it is a good replacement for soy sauce. It just isn’t as sweet as ketjap Manis.
Thanks for another great recipe!
I am sure bookmarking this . Looks so so yumm, I have onlymade meatballs with toamto sauwe so this i am really looking forward making it.
For the Ketjap I have read you can used soysauce mixed with a bit of suagr/honey so that you get the sweet taste of Ketjap.
This was so good! Echt jammie! Ik heb dit vanavond gemaakt, ook met jouw andijvie stampot. Echt verrukkelijk!
So I was talking to my sister(who live in the states) and they say you can buy Ketjap at most asian food stores. Ketjap Manis.
I love Dutch meatballs. In our family, we have a slightly different take on them but I am very tempted to try yours for dinner tonight!
Amazing taste Kay!!!
Actually all my life I make something similar, but I use different spices. Today I made by your recipe and the taste was really good! Meatballs were soft and juicy, they were rich of unusual (for me, for this kind of meat) spices. In my recipe, I always use there just meat, finely cropped onion, garlic, egg, water instead of milk (sure milk is better!), salt, pepper and sometimes cumin or fresh dill. Oh.. and most of the time the meat is 1/2 beef and 1/2 pork. And frying on olive oil.
Thank you so much!!!
I’m going to make these tonight and have a quick ? In your opinion how different do you think these will be without the nutmeg? Will they still be edible and just as tasty without the nutmeg? A bit of cumin instead? Thanks. Nice site by the way. I came via never enough thyme.
@Clive:
I honestly doubt it. The nutmeg is a really big part of what makes the flavor and what makes these authentic Dutch meatballs.
They turned out really well. I took pics of the leftovers but am lost on how to post them.