Escudella (Escudella i carn d'olla)
Overview
Escudella i carn d'olla is the great Catalan meat and vegetable soup. Beef, chicken, pork bones, pig's trotter, black and white butifarra sausage and chickpeas are simmered for hours with cabbage, potato, carrot, celery and turnip. A big meatball called pilota, made of minced meat, garlic, parsley and breadcrumbs, cooks in the pot as well. The rich broth is strained and served first as escudella, with large shell-shaped pasta called galets. The meats, meatball and vegetables, the carn d'olla, follow as a second course on a platter. It is a deeply satisfying winter meal.
History
Escudella is one of the oldest recorded dishes of Catalonia, mentioned in cookbooks from the fourteenth century, when it was a daily food in many homes. Today it is eaten mostly in winter and above all on Christmas Day, when the broth with giant galets, called escudella de Nadal, is a family tradition. Barcelona restaurants and markets sell it on cold days.
Main ingredients
Pork and beef, pilota meatball, galets pasta, chickpeas, cabbage and potato, butifarra sausage. The soup is built on meat and vegetable broth and is usually served hot. Diet: contains meat; not usually gluten-free.
Explore: Chickpea soups · Beef soups · Pork soups · Potato soups · Cabbage soups · More soups from Spain
Recipe
Method
- 12 h
Simmer the meats and chickpeas in 4 l water for 2 hours, skimming often.
- 240 min
Add the vegetables, pilota and sausages and cook for 40 minutes.
- 3
Strain the broth and cook the galets in it.
- 4
Serve the broth and pasta first.
- 5
Serve the meats and vegetables as a second course.
- ✓
Serve. About 3h 30m from start to bowl.
Sources
Description, history and recipe written by SoupWiki and checked against the sources above. Calories and times are rough estimates.
