You could ask: “A soup recipe again?”
Yes.
But wait, listen… I have an explanation! …You see, autumn took over completely – and for me, it’s not pumpkin spiced season, for me it is soup season, Baby!!! Believe me, it’s gonna be super easy, and totally worth it! So, pleasepleaseplease let me show you how to make Sopa de Albóndigas – a warm hug to your soul this winter …

Ingredients:

• 500 g minced beef
• 100 g white rice
• 1 egg
• 1 onion
• 1 zucchini
• 1 carrot
• 1 celery
• 2 potato
• 2 corn
• 1 lemon/lime
• 1 can of diced tomato
• 4 – ∞ cloves of garlic
• Salt, pepper, beef cubes, garlic powder, cumin, cilantro, oregano

⏱️ prep time: 20 minutes
⏱️ cooking time: 60 minutes

Let’s start cooking, good lookin’

We start with the meatballs – just to follow some sort of a logistics here, people.

• Put the meat in a big bowl, and add a full large egg. Season it with salt, black pepper, cumin, cilantro, and garlic powder and MIX it.
• Neeext: we cut up and sauté* the onion. I had a huge ass onion, so I only used half at this step – the other step goes in the base later.
  • *Cooking 101: sauté is when you cook a vegetable – in our case now, an onion – in a little oil or butter with a pinch of salt and pepper until it’s tender and golden, but not burnt. If you wanna be fancy you can add a splash of balsamic vinegar.
• Neeext: let’s cook the rice* – if you are not lucky enough to have some leftovers.
  • *Cooking 101: I usually put the same amount of water and rice, and when it needs more during cooking I just add the extra water little by little. When it’s almost done I turn off the heat, cover it, and let it finish cooking itself in the steam. This method works for me every time.
• Neeext: when the onion and the rice are cooked add both to the meat mixture and MIX it again – try with a fork this time, because it’s gonna be hot at first.

• Neeext: let’s get our hands dirty and make those meatballs. I like it a bit smaller so it cooks faster – but as you can see nothing on my tray is actually even at the end… but yeah, more or less something like this:

Beautiful, and now set them aside, and let’s get going because I said that the prep time is just 20 minutes, and we are already here for like 3 hours. 😀 So, chop chop, let’s continue with this soup.

• Now let’s make the base* of our Sopa de Albondigas.
  Cut up the carrots, onion, like 4 cloves of chopped garlic, and celery and put it in a big pan – big enough to add a good 1.5 liter of water and the other veggies and the meat later. The traditional ratio of the mirepoix* is 2:1:1 – two parts onion, one part carrot, and one part celery. Salt it well, and cook it around for a few minutes.
  I couldn’t find any celery in the shop this time so yeah, it’s missing from my pictures and from the food aswell. Not great, but still okay …let’s pretend we have it, and just roll with it.
  • Cooking 101: mirepoix vs. sofrito – Mirepoix is a classic flavor base in French cuisine. It is made by sautéing a mixture of diced onions, carrots, and celery in butter or oil. Sofrito base is used in Spanish, Italian, and Latin American cuisines – and Hungarian too, ha! It’s onions, garlic, peppers, and tomatoes, all finely chopped and sautéed in olive oil.
• Neeext: add some cumin and oregano – Mexican oregano is better if you have any, but I just used normal, boring oregano – and we’re gonna add the can of diced tomatoes too. Now, let this cook for a bit, then fill it up with water, I put 1.5 liters.
• And now it’s time for a taste test. Instead of water, you can use beef or chicken stock, but I prefer building up the flavor in the pan. This is why, at this step, I put 3 beef cubes, some more garlic powder, a bit of cumin, and cilantro – fresh, if you have.
  Trust your taste buds here, if anything missing, they will tell you.

• Now we prep the rest of the veggies. Cut up the potatoes into bigger chunks and add them to the pan with the corn.

• Let this cook for a couple of minutes, and when it starts boiling again, slowly and carefully start adding the meatballs – they have to sink and be fully covered.
• Take the heat down to medium, don’t let it bubble like crazy because the meat will fall apart.
• … and now we’re gonna let the flavors meet each other and leave them slow dancing a bit. 💃
• Cover it, let it cook until it’s almost done, and well… now, we just wait.

Now during the commercial break, I would like to tell you that the original recipe is from Eva Longoria’s second cookbook. I love both of her books. Not to mention her gastro docu-series (next season is gonna be about Spain – I literally freaking cannnnotwait) it’s sooo good, I totally recommend it to a foodie, like me. Oh, and luckily she cooks more and more on TikTok too.

Welcome back to our show.

• Let’s prepare the zucchini. Wash it – duh. Cut it up into pieces of your liking, and then – big surprise – we gonna add it to our soup. It’s cooking quite fast so that’s why I suggest putting it in the last 5-10 minutes.

• … and now we let it cook for another 5-10 minutes again. Before you think you are done here, just in case take out a meatball, and check if it’s properly-thoroughly-nicely cooked in the middle too, and if you think it is, then tell your husband to set the table because we are ready.

Ayyy, porfavoooor

As a finishing touch, you can squeeze a few drops of lime or lemon juice over your bowl of hot magic.

Enjoy!

See you at the next one,

Noémi

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