Meatball Soup Recipe

Who doesn’t like meatballs? Using them as ingredients in soups will open up not just almost infinite possibilities but the heart of our beloved ones too.

However, minced meat isn’t the high tower of culinary perfection, it has a cozy nook in everyone’s heart. It’s not bad considering that mincing meat started out as the damage control of the butchering process.

Nowadays, it is most probably one of the most consumed type of meat product all over the world. Well, we may not consider the store-bought sliced turkey breast minced meat, thanks to those appetizing food photos on the packaging but in reality, those slices have as much to do with natural meat as frankfurters to real sausages or God save saying to chorizo.

Sometimes, it has very little to do with meat at all depending on what price category we shop in. The cheaper the meat is, more the sugar and various other fancy industrial ingredients are stuffed there to make those pinky slices somewhat apt for human consumption.

At least when we head to McDonald’s the burger looks like made of minced meat. It would be a stretch to say that it connects us back to nature through the natural form of meat but we may feel that we are a step closer.

Nothing would be further from the truth but if anyone who has ever lingered around a barbecue grill seeing burger patties sizzling on the grill can feel the connection to nature itself. Mainly because BBQ parties are outdoor events but human brain does associations that we who only reside in the neocortex not even aware of.

Some say that burgers aren’t meant to be healthy but it doesn’t mean they can’t be. Using quality ingredients, we can create quality dishes the same way minced meat is prepared.

If we use prized cuts to make the minced meat, we have a much different experience than using skin, bones, soy and sugar.

Luckily though, we don’t have to spend a fortune to enjoy minced meat. In fact, the less fat the mince contains, the less flavorful and dry the prepared dish will be.

Despite years of beating and battering by the health community, fat is making a comeback from the dark corners of high culinary where it was respected and cherished as the pillar of flavorful cooking.

Now that carbohydrates are the bad boys, we can stuff our food with all the fat we like without feeling guilty about frying the eggs in the rendered-out fat of pancetta slices.

As fat is the storage of all nutrients that the body may need in case of famine, it is filled with all the things that was once consumed but hasn’t been used up by the body. Pigs which were fed with nuts 3 months prior butchering yield a completely different flavor portfolio that people around the world are willing to pay really good money for.

The people who are devoted enough to grow their own food may have the opportunity to indulge on such feast. The rest of us have to be content with the meat we can get from our local butcher shop and do the best we can with spices, herbs and the fat we have on the meat.

However, meatballs aren’t really picky about the quality of the meat we make them from. As we use some eggs to stick everything together a fatter rich cut will do just as well as lean parts. It’s all up to our particular preferences.

Traditional meatballs recipes may call for some sort of starch, like breadcrumbs but these are there only old cooking tricks to add volume to the dish without using pricey meat. Unfortunately, these are only empty calories and should be avoided, especially if we are on a low carb diet or trying to reduce our calorie intake.

Making meatballs for a soup isn’t different from preparing them for the oven or the deep fryer but we get a completely different dish at the end. There are plenty of soups ranging from clear to purees giving us plenty of opportunity for meatballs while having something entirely different time after time.

Ingredients:

• ½ cup / 150ml Oil
• 1 Onion (diced)
• 1 Carrot (diced)
• 1 stalk Celery (diced)
• 7 cup / 1.7l Water
• 1 teaspoon Salt
• ½ lb / 250g Peas
• ½ lb / 250g Green beans
• ½ lb / 250g Carrot (sliced)
• ¼ lb / 250g Mushrooms (sliced)
• 1 Bay leaf
• ½ Lemon juice
• 2 lb / 800g Minced meat
• 2 Egg
• 1 teaspoon Salt
• 7 oz / 200ml Sour cream

How to make meatball soup:

1. Pour oil into a saucepan and heat it up.
2. Dice up onion, carrot and celery stalk.
3. Add them onto the hot oil with salt and saute until the onion get a glassy / translucent look.
4. Turn heat down to low and slowly fry them until the onion caramelizes and gets a golden brown color.
5. Add the peas, green beans, mushroom, carrot, bay leaf and lemon juice. A slice of lemon can be added too.
6. Fill the pot up with water, add the salt and turn the heat up. If it starts to boil reduce the heat until the meatballs are placed in as well.
7. Mix the egg with the minced meat and salt.
8. Make the meatballs.
9. Place them into the soup.
10. Turn the heat up again until it starts to simmer then reduce the heat.
11. Cook it for 20 minutes or until the meatballs’ inside temperature reaches 145°F / 63°C.
12. When everything is done, mix in the sour cream or in case of that just cream.
13. Let it sit for a couple of minutes before serving.

Enjoy!

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