Meatball stew (Ragout de Boulettes)

I believe that you have as many meatball stew recipe as you have french canadian families.
This is definitely winter food. Eat that in California and you will die a slow and horrible death....LOL
I had in July once and couldn't move for 2 days....
To make this recipe (that is not written anywhere in my case) You have to start by toasting the flour for the gravy it tastes better than store bought. Then you season your ground pork with salt,pepper,ground cloves, cinnamon, a big chopped onion ,savory and chopped garlic. I had a bit of nutmeg. The day before I had made my stock by boiling pork hocks in water with celery, carrot, onion, bay leaf ,garlic and savory. After 2 hours I strain the broth and put it outside (covered of course) to cool so I can de-grease it in the morning. I take the hocks and remove the fat and the meat and put it in the fridge. Then I make the meatballs and roast them.
When the broth is de-greased, I heat it and start adding the toasted flour to thicken it and seasonnings too: salt pepper, ground cloves ,cinnamon ,savory and garlic powder. When it is the desired thickness (I play this by eye...as the rest of the recipe I tell you) and the desired taste I had the meatballs that have been drained to re-heat and the last 15 minutes the reserved meat from the hocks and add it to heat also. It is tradionnaly served with boiled potatoes. I added green beans and I garnished it with chopped parsley (it looks better) I can hear my dad saying: Did you put lamb neck in your stew? He askes me every year and I say: No dad, I can't find lamb neck in the boondocks (and besides it is not a big favorite here). I could make this recipe all throught winter, but for some reason it has to be made BEFORE Xmas!!! And if you read the post it is a LONG recipe to make....I felt like I ran the marathon after! Anyways we had some for supper and I have 4 dishes of it in the freezer (it freeze really well). Well folks, that's it for today! I hope to blog tomorrow about ..... hihihi