Queen’s Soup

Ingredients for the broth

Pork, beef and hen bones, 1 ramellet tomato, 4 garlic cloves, a bunch of soup vegetables (celery, leek —white part only—, parsnip, carrot, a cabbage leaf and a sprig of thyme), one onion, parsley, sobrassada.

Ingredients for the soup

Meatballs, pasta, hard-boiled eggs (1 for every two people), olive oil, salt and semolina (optional).

Preparation

Place all the broth ingredients in a large pot, cover with water and boil for one hour with the pot uncovered, skimming occasionally. After this time, strain the broth.

While the broth is cooking, prepare the meatballs following your usual recipe, making them very small—approximately the size of a chickpea. Fry them in a pan with olive oil and set aside.

In a separate pot, boil the eggs. Once cooked, cool them under cold water, peel them, chop them and set aside.

Bring the strained broth back to the heat and add the pasta (vermicelli, small tubes or small galets), the meatballs, the chopped hard-boiled eggs and the semolina. When it comes to a boil, turn off the heat, transfer to a soup tureen and serve.

Note: This is one of the traditional dishes served on St Stephen’s Day, the second day of Christmas. Some people also add pieces of chicken or turkey from the Christmas broth and small cubes of cooked ham.