The family (chicken) matzo ball soup (real soup from my Jewish mom).
Everyone claims to have "real matzo ball chicken soup" but here is my mother's which had been passed down from a some odd Manishevitz box (heh, kidding) and finds testament in the hands of thousands of yentas.
Ok, here it is, and generations of old withered dead Jewish women are turning in their graves. The "Jewish penicillin," the specialty of every family worth their weight in matzo. It occurred to me that I have been watching my good Jewish mom make this soup, and then making it myself for my entire life, but had never written it down, never measured it out, never even found a good recipe online the way the "family" makes it. Now, you can have it.
But remember… soup is as much art as it is science.
Art... you'll hear me say that several times. We could play a drinking game by this entry.
Art (drink). Remember that, because what I'm giving you is the science of it, but you have to remember it takes a bit of art (drink) along the way. What I mean is that you'll have to taste, prod, and love your soup to get it just right.
First, a few things to remember, and I don't mean any of these lightly:
* This is not Campbells' chicken soup. Campbells soup is good, I'm happy to eat it after a long day's work, but nothing Campbells makes will make you taller, stronger or better looking than mom's soup. I can't say that it makes winter flu feel better like my mom's matzo ball soup.
*This soup is not to be undertaken lightly: it will take you hours, serious hours to make, and it actually takes overnight to become perfect.
*This soup is not for the weak of heart or squeamish - not to sound like a horror movie, but if you young Jedi endeavor to make the almighty soup, you will be sticking your hands in chicken, mush up chicken with fingers to feel for small bones, and ripping up chicken skin, wading in schmaltz. If you ever flub and boil or simmer your soup, you will go straight to hell, do not pass go, do not collect $200. You will still burn in the endless flame of purgatory with some woman named Esther telling you endlessly about her son-in-law and the pain in her kishkas.
Ok! Take me to the soup Moses!
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Cost: about $15.00 for ingredients.
Serves: 10-15 servings. Really good for freezing. Will keep for about 6 months in freezer.
Time: about 9 hours. Yes, you heard me NINE HOURS. I told you this soup was a commitment. By the time you're done, you've entered a serious relationship with it, gotten married to it, and are talking about having kids.
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You will need:
- 1 pot large enough plus lid to boil your mother in-law Rachel in. 8 quarts plus. You need plenty of room.
- 5 1/3 quarts cold water. Oy, not freezing, no ice, ice-smice, just cold enough from the sink, don't be a schmuck.
- just short of 4 lbs chicken - say 3.5 lbs to 4 lbs - and here's the art: dark meat works best, so use dark meat you schmoe! Legs with thighs, the bone and the skin. You must, must, must have the bones and the skin and the fat. Without the bones and the fat plus skin, you will be making soup that tastes like water. What white meat? You tried to make soup but you maybe just poached that chicken, eh? About white meat: it's ok to use a little but white meat is drier than dark and this will affect your soup. You can use a whole chicken, but why put yourself through that kind of heartsickness? The rinsing, the deboning, alright already! Best to follow my advice and get yourself four nice meaty legs/thighs with the bone still in and the skin. Bones and skin, not just meat. Do you catch the hint? Bones and skin. One more time: bones and skin. Here's what I did last night: 3.4 lbs of legs (3) and a large (white meat) breast/rib cage (about .5 lbs) - (*shrugs*) eh! Meat was expensive this week and we had the breast with ribcage in the freezer. Again, it's art and heh! Everything is negotiable. Sue me.
- 1 lb carrots - peeled and sliced to about an inch thick each. However, due to modern science, they now have those fresh pre-skinned baby carrot bags of the needed weight and they're thin and range about 2 inches each. These are fine, just be sure to rinse them first.
- 6 mature celery stalks. Clean and cut into half inch slices.
- 5 middle sized white onions, without the brown outside peel and cut off the ends for god's sakes! Two whole and 3 of them halved. You can use 6 or 7 if you really like them and they're a bit smaller.
- 7 1/2 teaspoons to 9 teaspoons of salt plus pinch - mostly to taste. Salt will make the soup though and pull the flavor out of the chicken.
- 1 pinch black pepper
- 1 manischewitz matzo ball mix box. Matzo balls - ah the matzo balls. Now, you could make them from matzo, pulverize it, add the various whoo-haws, oil, egg, sweat, salt. But Jews since the 19th century have been using manischewitz mix, so what's so good about you that you can't, eh? Do yourself a favor and use it.
- Bar of soap and a clean towel - why? Because you're handling chicken in all ranges of being cooked. Clean hands and clean surfaces make good soup. Don't forget you can get sick from raw chicken and any surface/item it touches. I mean it; you'll be washing your hands after every step - EVERY STEP - and clean hands mean you love your family, existence, unicorns and the soup.
1 weight of the world - you know, in case you're not enough of a martyr after reading this recipe.
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Manischewitz matzo balls - you can make either the night before or at the very end.
2 eggs & 2 tbsp oil (vegetable) per 1 packet in box (2 in box). They suggest a packet makes about 15 matzo balls, but these will be huge! 1 packet makes about 20 matzo balls for me and should for you. Use a teaspoon to help you measure (about 3/4ths of a tsp is correct) and they will expand in the boiling water.
Just follow the instructions and you'll do fine. Hint: keep hands wet and cool and your matzo rolling will go smoothly.
Matzo balls will be very tender when done, but need to drain a bit. Draining on paper towels or brown paper is not good as they will stick. Either let them drip dry in very dense plastic colander or on plate and just keep trickling out the water. These can sit overnight after drained in refrigerator overnight if covered.
Do not add matzo balls until after soup is made.
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The soup:
1. Wash hands thoroughly, and wash hands between every, every following step.
2. In large pot put 5 1/3 quarts cold water, chicken (rinsed), pinch of salt, and put on lowest heat possible. Cover with lid. low low low flame, barely there flame - remember, this is a long distance run, not a sprint. In order to get soup you have to suck out all the marrow of life and the flavor of the chicken. Let heat/cook for about 2 1/2 hours - but you will not take the pot off heat until end of soup - just keep it on entire time steps 2-7 on low heat. Stir.
3. Stir every half hour. After the first hour, throw in first three teaspoons of salt.
4. Broth should be forming and you can see the fat pooling. Chicken should be poached all the way through (if not, give another half hour or so). Meat will pull easily from bones. When this happens, scoop out 1/2 of the chicken and put in bowl (re-cover pot) - let stand and cool enough until you can handle it (about 10 minutes). (Don't turn off pot!)
5. When chicken has sufficiently cooled, this is where you pull off meat from bones. ALL MEAT, not that which you can just easily reach. Best to have another medium sized bowl and plate for the bones nearby. You have to use your FINGERS and feel for every last bit of fat and pull out every last little bone so people don't choke. Pull meat into bite-sized or smaller pieces. Discard all bones and cartilage... and see that broth in the bowl where the meat is? Pour that back in too. (That's good stuff!)
5a. REGARDING SKIN: you have a choice here: I like "dirty soup" or the soup with the skin, as it's yummy and better for sickness days - therefore I tear the skin up also. However, some people really dislike the skin, so instead of tearing into small bite-sized pieces, you can pull off the skin in large strips for later skimming off. Choose wisely young Jedi, and may the force be with you.
6. Take out rest of chicken into your bowl and dump deboned chicken with skin back in (re-cover pot). Repeat step 5 (& 5a) and dump that chicken in. skin will float so you'll notice that you'll be able to take skin out if you choose to.
7. Add 3 1/2 teaspoons of salt. Add pinch black pepper.
8. Add first two whole onions (not the halved ones).
9. Stir (re-cover pot). Let cook another 1/2-hour stirring occasionally until onions are soft and cooked through.
10. Add carrots and celery and remaining halved onions. Add another teaspoon of salt and pinch of pepper. Stir. (Re-cover pot) let cook 1 hour, stir every 20 minutes.
11. Stir, taste. If your soup tastes a little thin, add another half teaspoon to teaspoon of salt and stir. Let sit on low low heat another 10 minutes and taste. It should be fine now, but if not, add another teaspoon of salt and stir. Take off heat. Here's where you can take out the skin if you choose to. (then) add matzo balls and lightly stir as matzo balls will break up if you agitate too much. Re-cover pot and let stand for at least 1/2 hour. During this the matzo balls will soak up the flavor of the soup.
12. Enjoy with salt/pepper to taste (in your bowl, not the pot!). Remember, this soup gets better the day after. Also it's perfect for freezing. We always freeze a few bowls the day after for later keeping.
13. Whine about how much you slaved over said soup. Complain about pain in your hip. You worked hard, you deserve it!
