Albondigas!!

My group at work is celebrating Cinco De Mayo on Siete De Mayo this year. With the 5th being on a Sunday and wanting to minimize the impact of the forgetfulness of people over the weekend and have them showing up on Monday forgetting we were celebrating on the 6th we're doing it on the 7th. Whew, that was tough!

There's a salsa contest as part of the celebration and the Pattersons are bringing two entries, one is the red tomatillo based salsa we've been providing to friends the last year and the other is a green tomato based salsa we've made for years. Both recipes are from Berdie's Mom and we love making them.

To accompany the salsa contest I thought it would be good to bring in a Mexican soup and our Albondigas was one I thought of first. Albondigas is a Mexican meatball soup. It's a little more work than many of my soups, mostly because of the making of the meatballs but worth it when you're done. I got this recipe off of allrecipes.com and made some tweaks here and there. I have a pound of sausage instead of a 1/4 pound, that requires some additional portions of eggs, seasonings, and corn meal. Be sure you chop the onion into small pieces otherwise they'll make it tough to make small meatballs. I use our green salsa I mentioned above instead of buying something but Berdie has had me sign a non-disclosure agreement on all salsas so you'll need to procure your own. All I changed in the broth is the addition of lemon juice.

Hope you enjoy.

INGREDIENTS
Meatballs
1 pound of lean ground beef
1 pound of pork sausage
1 onion, finely chopped. Red, yellow, white, doesn't matter
2 beaten eggs
1 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of ground pepper
1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder
1/2 cup of milk
1/2 cup of fresh chopped basil
1/3 cup of cornmeal

Broth
6 cans of beef broth, 14oz each
8 oz of green salsa
1 onion, chopped
2 cans of peeled and diced tomatoes, 14.5oz each
1/2 teaspoon of dried basil
1/2 teaspoon of dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon of ground black pepper
1/2 cup of white rice
2 tablespoons of lemon juice

METHOD

1. Combine all of meatball ingredients in a large bowl and mix thoroughly by hand. Squeeze, and squeeze, and squeeze until fully blended.
2. Form meatballs to your desired size. Some people like them bite sized such that two can fit on a soupspoon, others like them larger and then chopped them up when eating the soup.
3. Place the meatballs back into the mixing bowl and refrigerate while you make the broth.
4. Combine all of the broth ingredients except the lemon juice and rice in a large soup pot
5. Bring to a boil and then lower to a simmer leaving uncovered for 20 minutes
6. Add the meatballs one by one and the rice
7. Simmer , covered, very slowly for 60-90 minutes. 60 if meatballs are small, 90 if they are larger.
8. Test a meatball for doneness. If not done leave for another 10 minutes
9. Add the lemon juice and stir completely.
10. Salt and pepper to taste and serve