The recipe for escudella and pot roast: how to cook it easily and successfully

Christmas stews and meat dishes must include meatballs, black sausage, and galets. It's the magic triad that makes the dish stand out from other stews, stews, and stews. cooked and pots, which are made in the rest of the State and also in northern Europe.

To continue talking about the ball, we must refer to the book What we have eaten, by the writer Josep Pla, who described in detail what it should be like: "It's not shaped like a running ball, I mean round; rather, it has an elongated tubular shape." And people like it because "it's easy on the teeth, and this is always appreciated," he continued.

And regarding the origin of the dish, tradition holds that before the war the dish was eaten six days a week, with Sundays being a day of rest. It was prepared with different types of meat: hen, small chicken pieces, veal, bacon, and black or white sausage. On the other hand, there were the basic vegetables: carrot, cabbage, and the tuber, potatoes. Also two legumes: chickpeas and white beans. And everything in moderation, and the example was the quantity of legumes, which in the cooked They are abundant, while in the escudella they are just right.

Above all, the restaurant chef speaks Can Marco, in San Esteban de PalautorderaOriol Sabé, in his own recipe for escudella and carne de olla, in which he explains important tricks such as placing the beans inside a mesh bag so they can be recovered together once they have boiled for a full hour.

Ingredients for six people

For the meat

• 3 backbones
• 2 beef knee bones
• ¼ chicken
• 3 veal chop bones
• ⅛ of chicken
• 200 g of pork jowl
• 1 ham bone
• 200 g of pig's face
• 1 lamb arm
• 300 g of crochet beans

For the ball

• 200 g of minced beef and 200 g of pork
• 1 slice of country bread without the crust
• 2 whole eggs
• Milk (or plant-based milk in case of allergy)
• Pine nuts
• Parsley
• Truffle
• Salt and pepper

For tubers and vegetables

The ones I recovered after boiling:

• 2 potatoes
• 3 carrots
• ¼ cabbage
• 1 ñamera

The vegetables and greens that you will leave in the broth

• 1 leek
• 1 branch of celery
• 2 Figueres onions
• 1 turnip
• 1 parsnip

To finish the recipe

• 1 black sausage
• 1 white sausage
• 250 g of galets

Elaboration

1. The night before preparing this recipe, salt the meat and store it in the refrigerator. Place the beans in a bowl of water to hydrate.
2. Start by placing all the meats in the pot, including the beans, which you'll place inside a tied mesh netting so you can easily retrieve them an hour after the boil begins. The meats will continue to boil for two more hours. That is, allow three hours to complete the entire recipe.
3. Once you have the meat and beans in the pot, which should be large, cover it and bring to a boil over medium heat. When it begins to boil, lower the heat. During this process, you'll need to render the fat, which will accumulate at the top of the boil. Remove it with a ladle and discard it.
4. While it's boiling, make the ball. In a bowl, place 200 grams of minced beef and 200 grams of minced pork, a slice of day-old bread, removed from the crust, which you'll soak in milk, and add two eggs. Season with salt and pepper, then add a finely chopped garlic clove, a few chopped parsley leaves, a handful of pine nuts, and a little grated truffle. Stir until you have a smooth batter. You can do this with your hands or with a spatula. Once well mixed, set aside until one step further from the bowl.
5. After an hour and a half of boiling, add the vegetables, which should boil with the rest of the ingredients for an hour. Place the vegetables you'll be reusing once cooked in a colander. These will include the potatoes (they're a tuber), the yam, the cabbage, and the carrots.
6. Start preparing the leeks. Cut them in half, wash them under running water to remove any dirt. Continue with the celery stalk, which you will also clean and chop. And now continue with the two onions, one turnip, and one parsnip. Cut the onions into quarters. Then cut the turnip and the parsnip, peeling and cutting them into chunks. Place these last vegetables directly into the pot. And as for the vegetables you will be reclaiming: potato, yam, and three carrots. Peel the potatoes, the carrot, and the yam. Also prepare a quarter of the cabbage, clean it beforehand. All of these—potatoes, carrots, yam, and cabbage—will be reclaimed after an hour. That's why it's important to place them in a fine sieve.
7. After an hour, finish making the ball. Take the mixture (of the desired size) you have prepared in a bowl, coat it with flour, and add it to the broth. Dust with flour, but not too much. Then, add it to the broth. Traditionally, in our country, balls have been tubular, but you can prepare them any way you like.
8. With the meatballs in the pot, count down the clock for twenty minutes. Then add the two sausages, the black and the white, which only need ten minutes to cook.
9. After the last ten minutes, remove the pot from the heat, remove the potatoes, yams, and cabbage, and place them on a tray. Add the meats, meatballs, and sausages.
10. In another empty pot, strain some of the broth so you can add the galets when the broth boils. Check the galets packaging for the cooking time, so they're cooked thoroughly.
11. Finally, place the escudi and the pot meat on a deep plate; add a little of the various meats and the soup with the galets.

Enjoy!