Recipe #26: Mini Matzoh Balls

Passover was a couple of weeks ago, and I figured it would be fun if I tried making Matzoh Balls. I think we technically ate this on the second night of Passover, I gave myself points for trying though. While I do have some Jewish heritage, I’m told, I didn’t know the first thing about make Matzoh Ball Soup. I saw this recipe and decided if anyone knew how to make a Jewish delicacy it was Mario Batali…

Mini Matzoh Balls

The link also includes a recipe for egg drop soup. I’m personally not a fan of egg drop soup so I used my favorite chicken soup recipe.

What you need:

4 large Eggs (separated)

1/2 cup Chicken Stock

1/4 cup rendered Chicken Fat (melted)

1/2 cup Parsley (finely chopped)

2 teaspoon Kosher Salt (plus more for Egg Whites)

1 cup Matzoh Meal

1 teaspoon Salt

Plus 5 cups of chicken broth or stock to make the soup of your choice and cook the matzoh balls…

First step for me was to whip up the egg whites to stiff peaks, that way I could throw them in the kitchen aid, turn it on and go work on the other ingredients.

Whisk together the egg yolks, chicken stock, chicken fat, parsley and salt. It’s also worth noting that the recipe suggested maybe added green onion at this stage, and I quote, “for a fun twist”. I like fun, so I did!

Since I had just made my own chicken broth a couple night earlier (I sound so homey, don’t I? We’ll ignore that I normally buy Swanson’s by the case at Costco….) I actually did have some reserved chicken fat in the fridge.

From what I understand, this is referred to as “schmaltz”. (Secret about me, I love Yiddish. There are just so many awesome words. And they are fun to say too! Check this out for some yiddish words you really should know and work into every day speech.)

Anyways, wisk in the melted “schmaltz” and then stir in the matzoh meal…

By this point your egg whites should be ready, so you fold those in to the mixture…

Then you let that sit in the fridge for 15 minutes to thicken… And if you are me, you check it at 15 minutes and go “Hmmm let’s try 15 more.” Then you check again and go “Let’s just give it a full hour.” Then you check it again and go “I want to go to bed, I don’t care anymore if it’s not “thick” I’m just going with it!!”

So you take it out of the fridge and start to make “ball like shapes” out of the mixture and put them on a cookie sheet…

Matt called these Matzoh Mounds. Hey! They were round…ish. At this point, you are to let them rest in the fridge for at least an hour if not overnight. I went with overnight…

The next evening…

Heat up about 5 cups of chicken broth in a large pot and throw in your Matzoh Mounds. Let them simmer for about 15 minutes or so, turning them to make sure they cooking evenly.

This was also the point that I added my chopped up (cooked) chicken (reserved from the broth I made earlier) and some frozen veggies, so they could heat through.

15 minutes later it was time to eat!

Here is the confession: I have never had, that I can recall, Matzoh Ball Soup. So I have no idea how this would compare to others . What I can tell you is that this was very good! Very comforting and satisfying without being heavy. I really liked the “fun” green onion addition too, an extra bit of flavor. This was delicious and I would love to eat it again… will I make it again? Not without a good reason… it was just too much work! Under the right circumstances though…