WHAT'S
FOR DINNER MARGRIT?
Margrit’s Matzo Ball
Soup
matzo balls:
1 cup matzo meal
4
eggs
4 tablespoons canola oil, olive oil, butter or chicken
fat
black pepper to taste
salt to taste ( I like 2
teaspoons!)
freshly crushed garlic
1/2 cup finely chopped
onion or leek
herbs like: parsley sage rosemary and thyme ( for
real! and sing it)
1/2 cup water, broth, or soda
water
soup:
a whole
chicken, or your fave parts thereof, (I favor boneless
thighs)
(or at least chicken broth or, hell, even veggie broth)
carrots at least 2-5
sweet potatoes to taste
celery at
least 3-5 stalks
onions or leeks
regular potatoes
more
garlic more pepper
more herbs of your choice
Make the
matzo ball dough first cuz it should sit a spell. Measure out
the mazto-meal salt, pepper, and herbs of your choice. (If you
have matzo but not matzo meal, grind it in your blender or food
processor but not your word processor.) Beat the eggs real good
& add the oil/butter/fat. Chop up the onion/leek super finely.
Add the onion to the liquidy ingredients, then put that into
the dryer stuff and mix it up. It may be kinda dry so add the
broth/water until it’s putty like but not too wet or gooey. Put the
whole shebang in the fridge to rest.
Now, you can brown or
even completely cook those chicken parts and remove them from the
pan for the moment...or not if you don’t wanna put in meat.
But do chop up all the veggies into soupsize chunks and sautee them
either in the fat from the chicken or some nice fat you like, such
as butter or olive oil. You can let them start to get a tiny bit
softer, but not gushy, no! Add two or three quarts of
water--or a high quality chicken or veggie broth (NO BOUILLON!) and
simmer. Add back the chicken parts if you had already browned/or
cooked them or you could throw in a whole chicken which will take a
while.
When your chicken is cooked you can either add the
dumplings right to the soup or you can be cooking them in salted
water in anticipation of the doneness of the chicken. I cook them in
the soup, cuz it’s yummier--especially since I add garlic and more
herbs to the broth right before the matzo balls go in. Use a spoon
to dig into the dough & your hands to shape the matzo balls. You
can make them big you can make them small—the big ones take longer
to cook that’s all. Keep your hands moist as you roll them--that’s
the trick. They will take around 15 minutes, but don’t trust me,
taste them, are they done? Oh yum.
I usually double, triple
or quadruple this recipe for the flu or Passover. |
