Escudella: A thick soup for winter

Escudella used to be served as a one-course meal, or as a the broth with veggies for the first course, then the meat from the cooking pot. Since it's an everyday dish, it was usually made with whatever happened to be in the pantry. When times were tough, it was made with rice, vegetables, and hardly any meat. However, on special occasions or major celebrations, more flavourful cuts of meat were added, such as bacon, donja (a type of pork) or homemade boiled meat, as well as pieces of ham, chicken or lamb, and snail-shaped pasta was thrown into the pot.

You can celebrate the festivals of Saint Anthony or Saint Sebastian in January and sample the traditional stews prepared by the religious brotherhoods and served to everyone. This long-standing Andorran tradition is well worth discovering. If you decide to try it at home, add a touch of tradition and visit local producers to purchase traditional cure meats from Cal Jordi or Els Escaubells, as well as vegetables from Cortals Llumeneres or Casa Folch.

Yum! This winter will taste much better...
 

Preparation for 4 people:

Chop all the meats except the sausages.

Bring 6 litres of water to a boil and add the diced onions and celery, sliced carrots, chickpeas and beans (which you soaked the night before), the bones, the pork suet and chopped meat.

After boiling for 2 hours, add the salt, cut the white cabbage into small pieces and the sausages into thick slices.

After 20 minutes, add the diced potatoes and pumpkin, the noodles or the rice and leave it on the heat for another 20 minutes.

Before serving, remove the celery and the larger bones and, from these, cut the meat into cubes and add it back to the pot.

Let the escudella rest for about 5 minutes and then serve. A really exquisite dish!

The preparation of this recipe is easy and takes about 3 hours, an ideal dish for winter.

Ingredients for preparing the mixed escudella:

-¼ chicken
-150 g bacon
-200 g beef shank
-1 beef bones
-3 veal bones
-3 tender pork backbones
-1 pork ear
-1 oxtail
-½ cabbage
-1 celery
-1 onion
-2 carrots
-1 leek
-3 potatoes
-100 g white beans
-100 g chickpeas
-100 g thick noodles or rice
-50 g pork suet
-150 g pumpkin
-100 g of white sausage
-100 g of black onion sausage
-Salt