Off the Fork: Matzo ball soup, a medical miracle
Neither flu shots, nor surgical masks, nor repetitive handwashing can save me from my January fate.
Sooner or later, someone in my house will require a life-saving dose of chicken soup, and it’s up to me to come through. They don’t call this stuff Jewish penicillin for nothing.
In the lineup of necessary life skills, the ability to make chicken soup is somewhere between delivering a baby and performing the Heimlich maneuver. You probably don’t need to do it every day, but when the time comes, do it right.
The first principle is to start with a whole chicken. The soup depends on the bones and skin of the bird for the magnificent flavor of the stock.
The second principle is to deploy the so-called holy trinity of onion, carrot, and celery to flavor the soup. The combined flavors of these three vegetables mystically elevate chicken soup from broth to healing substance, and provide color and fiber as well as taste.
Matzo ball soup
8 servings
One 4-pound chicken, whole
12 cups of water
2 cups onion and 1 cup each carrot and celery (the Holy Trinity) all cut into ½ inch pieces
1 tablespoon tarragon leaves
2-3 teaspoons salt
Fresh ground pepper
1. Rinse the chicken inside and out and pat it dry. Remove the flap of very fatty skin near the cavity, and the fat around the neck by pulling it away with a paper towel. Slice the fatty skin into strips, place the strips in a small skillet and cook very slowly over low heat to render the fat. Save the rendered fat (this is schmaltz) for the matzo balls and eat the crunchy bits of skin that remain to keep your strength up.
2. While rendering the fat, place the chicken in a deep pot with a lid, add the water which should barely cover it, and bring it to a boil. Turn it down to medium and cook the chicken, covered for 35 minutes skimming off any foam that appears. Remove the chicken from the water and let it cool until you can remove and discard the skin. Remove all the meat and return the carcass and all bones to the stock pot. Reserve about two cups of the meat and cut it into bite-size pieces.
3. Bring the stock and bones back to a simmer and cook covered for about 3 hours, skimming foam if it appears.
4. Strain the soup into a 10-cup container and allow it to cool so you can skim off the fat that rises to the top.
5. Return the stock to a saucepan, add the vegetables and tarragon and bring it to a simmer cooking until the carrots are tender, about 20 minutes.
6. Add the salt and pepper, but don’t add all of the salt to the soup without tasting it. It’s very easy to add too much salt to chicken soup, and until the vegetables are cooked, you won’t really be able to tell whether it needs more.
7. Add the reserved chicken and reheat it to serving temperature.
For about 20 matzo balls, mix together:
1 cup matzo meal
4 eggs
¼ cup seltzer
¼ cup schmaltz (rendered chicken fat) or vegetable oil
Salt, pepper
Let the mixture sit in the refrigerator for 30 minutes and shape the balls with wet hands, drop them in boiling water, turn down the heat, bring back to a simmer, cover and cook for 10 minutes.
Strain the water and add the matzo balls to finished soup along with the reserved chicken.
