Cod meatballs: Recipe without meat ideal for Easter

As you surely know, above all and more specifically if you usually tend to enjoy this religious festival, it is usual that during Holy Week, especially Good Friday, do not eat meat, replacing it with other foods such as fish or shellfish.

The reason for this tradition or custom is found in the teachings of the Catholic Church, who defend that eat meat, especially red meat, represents the crucified body of Crisco, so that for a long time now it has been usual to avoid meat on Ash Wednesday, the first Friday of Lent and Good Friday.

Therefore, those known as Easter meatballs they are really delicious Fish meatballs, and they are prepared according to tradition to eat them on Good Friday.

They are meatballs that are prepared with cod, although it is true that also with any other fish. Easter meatballs can be prepared to be tasted alone or made in a broth, as is the case with the recipe we provide.

The recipe we provide in this post is the recipe for Meatballs of Holy Week in Priego, Córdoba. Place where we have also told you about another equally popular recipe: the traditional one hornazo de Priego.

Cod meatballs recipe

If we are going to resort to the salted cod to make these meatballs, we must remember two days before, to do the soaking and water changes every 8 or 10 hours until we go to cook it to desalt it.

Ingredients:

500 grams of desalted cod, hake or other fish.
4 garlic cloves without skin and minced.
About 4 sprigs of chopped parsley.
2 bay leaves.
Some strands of saffron.
5 eggs
An egg yolk
Salt.
Bread crumbs.
Virgin olive oil to fry the meatballs.
A splash of virgin olive oil for the broth.
Water for the broth (enough to cover the meatballs).

Elaboration:

We cook the fish in a cauldron with water and a little salt. When it starts to boil, lower the heat and cook the fish for about 10 more minutes. We put out the fire, remove the fish from the cauldron and reserve the water.
We let the fish cool down, we crumble it and put it on a tray.
Beat the eggs well and put them on the tray with the fish, half of the minced garlic cloves, half of the minced parsley, a pinch of salt, and the bread crumbs.
We mix everything and form the pasta a few balls, which will be the meatballs.
Put the oil in a pan to heat to heat. Once hot we are frying the meatballs.
We pray a little bit on both sides. We are putting the fried meatballs inside a cauldron.
Then we add the water to cook the fish that we had reserved, a little more water to cover the meatballs, the rest of the garlic cloves and the minced parsley, the bay leaves, the saffron threads, a little oil virgin olive
We put everything to cook with moderate fire, once it starts to boil, lower the heat and cook for 30 minutes.
A little before removing the meatballs from the fire, beat an egg yolk well and pour it over the meatball broth.
Remove a little, cook for 5 minutes more and remove from heat. Once they are warm, we can eat them.

Bon appetit and Happy Easter to everyone! ThemesEaster Recipes