Albóndigas de Pollo en Salsa Verde :: Chicken Meatballs in Green Sauce, doña Yola Style

Several years ago, Mexico Cooks! was thrilled to meet doña Yolanda Rodríguez Orozco.  At the time, she was working at a now-defunct buffet restaurant in Morelia, Michoacán.  In Mexico, 'doña' is an honorific indicating true respect for a woman (it's don for a man).  Affectionately known to one and all as doña Yola, she cooked with tremendous love as the primary seasoning for whatever she put on the table.

One of the most delicious items on the menu at that restaurant was Albóndigas de Pollo en Salsa Verde (chicken meatballs in green sauce).  Because I promised that I would share the recipe with all of you, doña Yola graciously shared her amazingly easy recipe with me.  Simple to prepare and marvelous to taste, these meatballs instantly made it to star status on our dining table.

A chicken vendor grinds fresh chicken breast to order at the weekly tianguis (street market) in our neighborhood.  You can ask the butcher at your supermarket to grind the breasts for you.

Gorgeous dark green vitamin-rich spinach, ready to chop for the albóndigas.

Fresh hierbabuena (mint) grown in a pot on our terrace or available at any market, along with beautiful fresh local eggs.

Albóndigas de Pollo en Salsa Verde Estilo doña Yola
Chicken Meatballs in Green Salsa, doña Yola's Way

Ingredients for the meatballs
1 kilo (2.2 lbs) freshly ground chicken breast
100 grams (more or less 1/4 lb) raw fresh spinach (stems removed), finely chopped
1 small white onion, finely minced
1 clove garlic, finely minced
1 Tbsp fresh mint, finely minced
1 chile serrano, finely minced
1/2 cup cooked white rice
3 eggs, lightly beaten
1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
Sea salt to taste
Freshly ground pepper to taste
1 tsp cornstarch or as needed

Ground chicken, spinach, onion, garlic, mint, and chile serrano, ready to mix with cooked rice.

Procedure
Lightly mix the first seven ingredients together.  Beat the eggs and Worcestershire sauce together and mix by hand into the mixture.  Add sea salt and ground black pepper to taste.  Add cornstarch until the mixture holds together well when you form a small amount into a ball.  Form the mixture into balls approximately 2" in diameter.  Makes 20 albóndigas.  Plate the meatballs in a single layer (Mexico Cooks! likes to re-use well-washed biodegradable meat trays from a supermarket for holding the albóndigas), then cover and refrigerate until ready to cook.

Tomates verdes (you probably know them as tomatillos) and chiles serranos for preparing salsa verde.  Remove the tomatillos'  papery husks and wash the sticky tomatillos thoroughly.

Ingredients for Salsa Verde
10-12 tomatillos (known in Mexico as tomate verde), husks removed
3 or 4 whole chiles serranos
1 bunch fresh cilantro, largest stems removed
Sea salt to taste

Procedure
In a large pot of water, bring the tomatillos and chiles to a full rolling boil.  Boil just until the tomatillos begin to crack; watch them closely or they will disintegrate in the water.

Using a slotted spoon, scoop the cooked tomatillos and chiles into your blender jar.  There's no need to add liquid.  Cover, hold the blender cap on, and blend until smooth.  Be careful not to burn yourself, this is a hot mixture and tends to react like lava in the blender.  Don't ask me how I know this.

While the blender is running, remove the center of its cap and, little by little, push the cilantro into the whizzing sauce.  Blend just until smooth; you should still see big flecks of dark green cilantro in the lighter green sauce.  Add sea salt to taste and stir.

Pour the salsa into a 2-quart pot.  Add the meatballs and bring to a simmer.  Cover and allow to simmer for about 30 minutes.  Mexico Cooks! prepared six meatballs for our comida (main meal of the day), but two meatballs apiece were plenty for the two of us.  We ate the leftovers (and another two meatballs) the following day.  We froze twelve raw meatballs without salsa for subsequent meals.

Albóndigas de pollo en salsa verde, plated with white rice cooked with carrots, Mexican style.

Mexico Cooks! is so grateful to doña Yola for sharing her recipe with us.  These albóndigas de pollo are not only easy to prepare and very healthy (with high vitamin K and beta carotene content and no added fat), but they are also absolutely delicious.

Provecho!

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Comments

[ROSA]

I've made these several times and they turn out delicious. I confess that more than once, I have not cooked the sauce as indicated in the recipe. I have prepared it, poured into the pot, and add the meatballs to cook along with the sauce. Delicious either way!
_____________________
Hi Rosa--take another look at the recipe--that's exactly how I cooked the sauce and the albóndigas together. You're right, delicious!

[Tony Anaya]

Wow! I remember Yola!!

[Leigh Thelmadatter]

yum!