Sopa de Albondigas

For many years, my mom made her recipe for "albondigas" and it was great.  So great, I made it for years.  And then my brother found a different recipe that used chorizo.  So ... I combined elements from the two recipes to come up with my "Ultimate" sopa de albondigas.

My husband absolutely loves this dish, and as I'm considering making it this week, I figured I'd share the recipe.


Enjoy.

Ingredients

1 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 stalks celery, sliced
2 T. cooking oil
7 - 8 cups chicken stock (I always start with 7, but usually add more)
1 15 oz can diced tomatoes
1 tsp oregano (whole, crushed between your fingers)
1 tsp cumin
2 medium potatoes, peeled and cubed
2 medium carrots, sliced
2 small or 1 large zucchini, cut in half lengthwise and cut across into 1/2" slices
salt/pepper to taste

Meatballs:

1 beaten egg
1/4 cup chopped cilantro

1/4 cup chopped mint
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano, crushed slightly with your fingers
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1 carrot, peeled and minced
2 cloves garlic, minced (I run mine over my microplane, but a garlic press would work, too)
1/4 cup long grain rice (uncooked)
1/2 lb ground beef
1/2 lb chorizo (I like Cattaneo Bros.)


In a large soup pot, saute onion/garlic/celery over medium-high heat in the oil for a few minutes until soft.  Add the tomatoes, the spices and the broth.  Bring to a boil and add the carrots and potatoes.  Simmer 5-10 minutes.

While simmering, make the meatballs:

Combine egg/spices/herbs/carrot/garlic/rice in a medium bowl.  Add meat and combine well -- hands work best to really make sure the 2 meats get mixed together.  Shape into meatballs using a 2 tsp size cookie scoop (very small - you can approximate by using 1 Tablespoon measure -- the meatballs increase in size when cooked as the rice expands).

Gently add meatballs to the simmering soup and cook for 15 minutes.  Add zucchini and continue simmering for an additional 10 minutes.  Serve with lemon/limes and Mexican rice.

Tamale Pie, the best version ever

Okay so I had a hankering for Tamale pie, and looking back on when I typed this out and emailed it to my friend, I made this pretty much the same night I conceived this baby.

Insert any number of innuendo or jokes here.

In any event, it's really really delicious. In fact, when I did a search of my email to find this recipe, I discovered I was emailing friends about this recipe several days after the fact, telling them how incredibly good it was.

 I am really looking forward to making it again this week.

You'll also need 2 lbs of meat, plus the stuff for the cornmeal topping ... and the Fritos ... but this is *mostly* what you need.

Meat, onions, garlic, seasonings all get thrown into the pan

Cook until the meat is browned (and smelling deelicious)

Add the corn/tomatoes/tomato sauce/beer

Simmer for about 15 minutes until it looks really really good, sorta like this. Yes, it'll be soupy - that's fine.

Cover the  bottom of your baking dish with Fritos.

Add the warm meat mixture

Corn meal - the yellow.

The mixture above is what it looks like BEFORE buttermilk is added.  I added 1.5 cups.  Stir it all up and then sorta plop it over the top of the meat ... and then ...

Smooth it out with the spoon -- it'll smooth over really easily!  Put into oven for 25 minutes, then remove and top with more cheese (YAY!)

After it's all done .. it'll look like this (and smell even better)

OH yeah, baby.

Here lies the deliciousness that are the baked up Frito bottom layer.

Please enjoy.

Ingredients

1 white onion, chopped
4 - 5 cloves garlic, chopped
2 lbs ground beef
2 T. California chile powder
1 T. Cumin
1 tsp. Oregano
1/2 - 1 tsp Lawry's garlic salt (to taste - I love, so I put more)
black pepper/salt (to taste)
8 oz can tomato sauce
8 oz can El Pato tomato sauce (this is somewhat spicy - just use "plain" tomato sauce if you want less spice)
1 can Mexicorn
1 can diced tomatoes, with juice
1 handful cilantro, chopped roughly
1/2 c. beer (can sub chicken broth/beef broth/etc)

Topping
1 c. cornmeal (I buy yellow bc it's less expensive than white - I'm cheap)
1 can fire-roasted diced chiles (*NOT* jalapenos!)
1/2 c. shredded Pepperjack (or use cheddar to make more mild)
1 can creamed corn (the 15 oz size, or 14.5 or whatever it is)
1 - 2 c. buttermilk (enough to make the topping "pourable" -- I didn't measure)
salt/pepper

Other needs: Fritos, 1 c. shredded cheddar, olives, sour cream

Heat oven to 400.

Saute onion/garlic/meat/spices until meat is browned. Add the tomato sauces, corn, tomatoes, cilantro and beer and let simmer about 15 minutes.

Put Fritos on bottom of a large baking dish (larger than 9 x 13 - like a lasagna/roasting pan - or you can use 2 dishes, a 9x13 and an 8x8).

In a separate bowl, combine the topping ingredients.

Put the cooked meat on top of the Fritos in the baking dish, then cover with the topping, smoothing over the top of the meat. (I added some whole olives on top so each "portion" would get one, but feel free to omit/serve on the side)

Bake for 25 minutes. Remove from oven, cover with 1 c. shredded cheddar (or more, if you like) and return to oven for additional 10 minutes.

Serve/devour with cottage cheese and/or sour cream.