Teun Horck from restaurant DIS in Veghel makes a mega carnival snack every year. Last year it was the mega chicken corn, the year before that the mega bami disk. And now there is the creation of 2026: the mega meatball weighing no less than 28 kilos, swimming in a wheelbarrow with gravy. “It was exciting.”
He was still in doubt, Teun said last week in Omroep Brabant’s radio program Afslag Zuid: was he going for a mega spring roll or a mega meatball with gravy this carnival? The Afslag Zuid listeners voted and with 83 percent the meatball was the clear winner.
But then it had to be possible to make the ball, the catering man said at the time. And now it has worked. The Carne Ball is ready to serve. “It was exciting,” says Teun. “I hoped in advance that it would stay nice and round and not fall apart.”
24 hours in the gravy
That didn’t happen and that’s probably because of the tactics. Teun has kept the minced meat compact by adding enough egg and flour. “Then I pushed the minced meat into two half bowls and placed them on top of each other.”
The two ‘cymbals’ went into the oven, and it just barely fit. The hope was that the two half blocks would stick together and that the ball would be cooked properly. The chef then let the ball float in a bowl of gravy for another 24 hours.
Now in the freezer
Anyway, it’s not carnival yet, and the ball will only then be handed out to revelers in Veghel. That’s why it’s in the freezer now. The night before the feast, the meatball is thawed and placed in the gravy again. The gravy is drawn from veal bones two days in advance.
Then it becomes exciting again, because the ball has to be brought from the restaurant to the party tent on the market. “I’m going to put the ball in my car and take a very large pan of gravy with me,” Teun thinks. “Then we’ll roll it back into the wheelbarrow.”
The ball will then be broached in the party tent around five o’clock. The cook also brings sandwiches and sauce. Does he have a world record? Teun doesn’t know that. “But I dare say that I made the largest meatball in Brabant. I am proud of it. It turned out really nice and big.”
Here you can read all the stories about carnival in Brabant.
