Catalan stew and soup with assorted meats and veggies
(Escudella i carn d'olla)
Six servings: 500g of ground beef meat; 1/4 of stewing chicken; 1
chicken cut into quarts; 200 g of raw pig's ear and snout; 1/2 pig's
trotter"; 1 ham dry-cured ham marrowbone; 100 g of streaky pork;
a big piece of backbone; 2 beef marrow bones pieces; 150 g of
white Catalan sausage; 150 g of black Catalan sausage (both
types of sausages are known as Butifarra blanca y Butifarra
negra, respectively); 250 g of chickpeas, soaked previously in
water 12 hr; 1cabbage; 250 g of peeled potatoes (rather small
ones, or cut into cubes); 1turnip; 1 carrot; 1 leek; 1 branch of
celery.
Ingredients for the meatballs: 200 g of ground pork meat; 250 g
of ground beef pork; 1eggs; 2 tbsp of breadcrumbs (finely
ground); 1 garlic clove, finely chopped; parsley; salt; and flour.
Ingredients for the soup: 400 g of "galets" (a type of snail-shaped
pasta piece)
Preparation of the meatballs: Mix both types of meats together
with the egg, the parsley, the garlic, some salt and pepper, first
with a fork and then with both hands to make a meat mass, which
must be cut into 4 quarts to form 4 meatballs that will be dredged
in flour and subsequently added to the stock.
Preparation of the soup:
Put the pig's trotters, ear and snout, together with the stewing
chicken, chicken and bone pieces in a big pot and cover it
sufficiently with water. Next, bring the pot to a boil and start to
skim off the fat and other oily impurities released by the
ingredients; after some 10 minutes add the chickpeas and bring
back the pot to a boil. This done, add the carrot, the turnip, the
celery, and skim off again. Let it all simmer for 90 minutes, a
period long enough to render the meats soft. Then, add the
cabbage, the potatoes, the sausages, the meat balls (pilotas in
Catalán).
Let the pot simmer another half hour, check the salt taste, and add
salt if necessary. Next, sieve all the ingredients, collect the soup