Pilotes de Nadal recipe: Christmas meatballs

Pilotes de Nadal are one of those preparations that are made ahead and appreciated on the big day. They are cocido pelotas: pork meatballs with dry breadcrumbs, spearmint and cinnamon, dipped in egg white, frozen and added to the broth when the time comes. Here is the recipe for the meatballs themselves; the cocido, soup or brothy rice they go into are covered separately.

What goes into a Christmas pelota and why

Minced pork carries the weight, browned in lard and oil before mixing. The meat is combined with the bread and the herbs when it has cooled a little, and with all its fat. With it go the dry breadcrumbs: Directo al Paladar uses two parts meat to one part crumb, and Valencia Bonita a kilo of meat to a half-kilo loaf.

The bread has to be two or three days old, quite dry, to grate on a coarse grater. Spearmint and parsley bring freshness, and cinnamon and pine nuts the festive touch. The source names salt without giving a quantity, so go by taste; the same with the egg white, which is as much as you need to coat all the pelotas.

Shaping them and dipping them in egg white

Make them by hand, the size the dish asks for. Remember that they grow in size when they are added to the broth, so do not make them the final size; in the question below you have Valencia Bonita’s reference for paella and for soup.

Then dip them in the beaten egg white: Valencia Bonita does it to give them more firmness. Lay them on a large dish, without crowding them, and leave them to dry a little if you are going to cook them straight away.

Freezing and using: broth, soup and brothy rice

The usual thing is to make them ahead and freeze them. Cover them; when you need them, bring them to room temperature and add them to the stew. They are good for noodle soup, for a brothy rice such as the brothy rice with chicken and rabbit and, above all, for the cocido con pelotas. The pilota in the Valencian puchero is a different mixture: minced meat, breadcrumbs, pine nuts, egg and parsley.

The time depends on the pot and on what goes with them: both timings, in a pressure cooker and in an ordinary pot, are explained in the cocido con pelotas.

Other mixtures: the Vega Baja one and the Castelló one

If you are looking for the Vega Baja’s “cocido pelotas”, Convega’s recipe book mixes pork with chicken or turkey and veal, adds longaniza and blanco, and seasons with cinnamon, pepper, nutmeg and clove; poultry livers or blood, optional, darken the colour. It is a different mixture for the same job, and in the cocido you will see when they go in and how long they cook. The Castelló version published by Valencia Bonita adds fresh chicken or hen’s blood: it is optional, but it calls it characteristic. Choose one mixture and do not mix quantities from one with the other.

If there are lots of you at the table

For the Christmas dessert, there are the sweet potato pastissets. Having the pelotas ready in the freezer at home is one thing; preparing the broth for a team lunch is another. If there are lots of you, we cook your company Christmas lunch, and so as not to rush, there is the guide to when to book the company Christmas lunch.