It’s What Soothes Me

Matzo Ball Soup

I avoid duplicating meals here, but after almost two and a half years of writing about and broadcasting my dinners, this soup, this ultimate comfort food has been featured more times than I can count.  And there’s no apologizing for it.  When I need soothing,  when I need never-fail-me-food, I turn to chicken soup and often, with matzo balls.  The results of an Amazon search for Chicken Soup turns up almost 4 pages of “Chicken Soup for the …” books.  With so many self-help books bearing Chicken Soup in the title, what can be bad?

Ok, I concede, not everyone craves broth based soup.  To many, thick and creamy soup equals comfort.  Don’t get me wrong, I can dive into a steaming hot vessel of Beef Stew with the best of them and Baked Potato Soup puts a smile on my face.  A creamy Butternut Squash Soup makes me dance as warm summer nights turn cool in the Fall.  And French Onion Soup Gratinée, and Tortilla Soup … well, don’t get me started.  But my go-to soup is this one.  It is the base for so many great soups around the world.  Some of my favorites — Wonton Soup, Pho, Hot & Sour Soup,  Italian Wedding Soup, Greek Avgolemono Soup, and more.  Far too many to list here.

The recipe is easy.  It takes time to prepare, and this is why I keep bags of stock in the freezer at all times, but making this soup reminds me of the past .  I remember going to Nanny and Poppy’s house (my grandparents) for holiday dinners.  Their apartment house looming in the distance as we approached Newark in different times.  I knew just what it would smell like as we got off the elevator and entered dark hallways — the smell of slowly cooking chicken soup wafting through the hallways was welcoming.  I often wish I could recreate this aroma in my hallway, so that it would bring neighbors in to see what deliciousness was drawing them from the elevator and we’d sit and chat over a bowl of wholesome chicken soup.  But the air handling systems in current day high rise buildings removes that nostalgia from the air.  Which, in these more diverse times is probably a good thing.  While it’s great to live in a melting pot, combining the flavors of diverse ethnic cuisines in the confines of a high rise hallway is probably an entirely different story.

Add this staple to your kitchen routine and you’ll be happy you did, follow these steps and you’ll find yourself avoiding supermarket chicken stock in a box or a can the next time you roam the aisles at your local grocery store.

• 1 plump chicken
• 1 large onion, sliced (thickly)
• 3 carrots, sliced — 1 inch pieces — if you’re freezing, cut the pieces larger because you’ll be removing them prior to freezing.  If you don’t, you’ll end up with carrot sponges in your defrosted broth — yuck!  The flavor they add is great, but the texture is something you don’t want to bite into, trust me
• 2 tablespoons chopped, fresh dill — if using dried dill, go a bit lighter, although dill is not an overwhelming herb
• Salt
• Demi Glace Poulet

Drop the chicken into a very large stock pot and cover with water.  To make things easy later, cut up your chicken and add it in pieces, being sure to include the heart, liver, kidneys and neck (if the parts were included with your bird).  Add the carrots and onions, reserving the dill for the very end.  At this point I add salt.  How much?  I knew you were going to ask that!  I tend to be a little light-handed on salt, but you can go with as much or as little as you want, just keep in mind that you won’t be tasting this soup until it’s had time to cook.  I don’t advise tasting uncooked soup.  You can always add salt before serving and while I only added a little more than a tablespoon of demi glace, it does add a fair amount of salt.

Cook the soup over medium high.  Once it begins to boil, reduce the heat and simmer.  At about 30 – 45 minutes you can remove the white meat, (check the temperature of the meat) which I recommend.  Cooking the soup for 2 – 3 hours causes the white meat to dry out.  DRY OUT in a pot of boiling soup, you say?!  Yes, really.  It gets dry and stringy.  But, if you want to use the breast meat for Chicken Enchiladas or other Pulled Chicken uses, just keep it in there.

Continue cooking the soup for hours.  I usually stop at three.  The longer you cook the soup, the more flavorful it becomes.  My soup is dark today because of the demi glace, but you know it’s been cooking for a long time because of it’s gelatinous texture which comes from the skin, connective tissue and bones of the chicken.  Come on, isn’t that what gelatin is made from and gelatin is what makes those colorful boxes of Jell-O people!  Don’t freak out on me.

Strain the soup, reserving the meat as you wish.

And this ends Day One of Making Chicken Soup.  At this point, it’s time to cool the pot enough to either transfer it to the fridge or pour it into a bowl you can cover and put in the refrigerator overnight.  The purpose of this step is to let the fat that’s floating at the top congeal so that you can skim it off.  If you’re desperate for Chicken Soup hot off the stove, go ahead, grab a ladle and pour yourself a bowl.   It’s GREAT with crackers.  I opt for Saltines or when I’m missing my life in The Philippines, SkyFlakes.

And now for the Matzo Balls and the essential ingredient — chicken fat.  Schmaltz.  Recently I’ve used the matzo ball recipe from Cooking On the Side.  It creates matzo balls that aren’t so heavy that they sink to the bottom of the bowl, yet not too light leaving you feeling like you’ve bitten into a cloud.  The chicken fat creates a flavorful, almost creamy matzo ball and the seltzer adds … well, I’m not sure, but the combination is perfect!

Now, I’ve tried dumplings.  I really have.  Years ago I had chicken and dumplings at a spur of the minute dinner at a friend’s house she threw together a spur of the minute chicken & dumplings dinner.  And this past Fall I tried them again at a trip to Cracker Barrel on a drive to the mountains to experience the in the Fall, but again, it wasn’t my thing.  As a matter of fact, I think I tried 2 and uncharacteristically left the rest in the bowl.  To me, it was just a bowl of boiled dough.  I dont know, maybe it’s a regional thing that a girl from Jersey just can’t relate to?

It’s a good idea to put the matzo balls on parchment paper or plastic wrap so that they don’t stick to the plate when you put them in the refrigerator to set up.

Matzo Balls boiling in water, almost ready for a big bowl of soup.

Matzo Ball Soup.  Perfect anytime of day, anytime of year.  I’m seeing Pho in the very near future in FRANtasticFood World Headquarters, but not before I take a bowl of Matzo Ball Soup to work for lunch this morning.

---

In 2007 my career with a large, but shrinking high tech Fortune 50 \"left me,\" leaving a void in my life. While lamenting the loss and flying around the world looking for a new career to get married to, I discovered a way to use a familiar outlet during tough times -- writing. My blog-writing morphed into writing about my favorite past time -- Food! I purchase food, sell food, make food, watch food being made, broadcast meal preparation, photograph and blog about food. Like I said; Food! To change this standard text, you have to enter some information about your self in the Dashboard -> Users -> Your Profile box.

---

Tagged as: Broth, Comfort, Food, Kitchen, Matzo Balls, Newark, Recipe, Schmaltz, Soup