Matzoh balls

Any know any good recipes for Matzo balls for Passover? We always make them and they never come out fluffy and fall apart. Thanks!

We always just follow the directions on the side of the matza meal box. Most of the time they turn out great, but sometimes they turn into cannonballs instead of matza balls. My kids like 'em both ways.

Enjoy your seder!

Suzy

The easy answer is to order them from The Bagel.

However, I saw a recipe from Wolfgang Puck in the Tribune's food section last week for matzoh balls that looked good. Couldn't find it online, though. Maybe check your library? I'm sure Recipesource.com has some, too.

I've used this one for years, passed down from the generations. I also like to mix in some gribenes. This is a high-altitude recipe (Lithuania by way of Mexico City) so cooking time may be different in your area. These are not super fluffy, but also aren't golf balls either. To make fluffier, add 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder. To make superfluffy, separate the eggs, beat the whites and fold in gently.


* Exported from MasterCook *

Matzo Balls

Recipe By :
Serving Size : 6 Preparation Time :0:00
Categories : Soups/Stews

Amount Measure Ingredient -- Preparation Method
-------- ------------ --------------------------------
4 eggs -- well beaten
1/2 cup chicken stock
1/3 cup chicken fat -- melted and cooled
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups matzo meal -- approx.

Mix the very well-beaten eggs with the rest of the ingredients. Adjust amount of matzo meal so that the mixture is neither too thick nor thin.

Refrigerate for a few hours.
Add a little bit more stock or matzo meal to adjust the thickness of the mixture.

Form the balls and cook in salted water or chicken soup for 1/2 hour.
serve in chicken soup.

My mother always added seltzer to hers.

I second gep's mother. Seltzer helps no matter what recipe you use.

Here is the recipe I use at the club. Each batch makes about 800 petite balls. We did four batches yesterday to get through this weekend.

Matzo Balls *

90 eggs
48 oz. chicken broth
48 0z. rendered duck fat, melted
2 oz. freshly ground white pepper
4 oz. kosher salt
6.5 qts. matzo meal

1. Whip eggs
2. Add chicken broth and duck fat
3. Add salt and pepper and mix well.
4. Add matzo meal and refrigerate for 30 minutes
5. Scoop with a #100 scoop.
6. Simmer for 60 to 90 minutes, or until tender and cooked through

* recipe may be scaled down

--start with the recipe on the box.
--separate the eggs.
--whip the whites to a soft peak
--double the liquid, using reduced chicken stock instead of water
--chicken fat instead of oil, optional--nothing beats the taste of schmaltz, but you come close if you use chicken stock instead of water AND cook the damn things in CHICKEN STOCK, not water; throw away that stock after cooking since its full of cracker meal starch (yuck).
--gently fold together all incredients
--the mix will be very loose, that's ok.
--be sure to refrigerate the final mixture at LEAST 30 min, an hour better, before forming and cooking. After resting in the refrigerator, the mix will tighten up considerably and become very 'formable'.

Surprised no one has surfaced the eternal question "Are we making sinkers or floaters?"

For the uninitiated, sinkers are akin to golf balls, hard to cut and rubbery to chew--whaddya want, we're talking cracker dumplings here. Floaters decompose like dandelion flowers at the merest touch of a spoon.

The method above yields transcendental matzoh balls--they float, they are light, but they emphatically do not decompose.

Evil Ronnie wrote:48 0z. rendered duck fat, melted

ooooh, duck fat. mmmm. gribnes.

The best matzo balls are made by Mexican cooks in Greek-owned restaurants!

No offense to my Aunt Sylvia ( who makes the best in our family ), they still don't compare to what I have had at Kappy's (Niles) or Omega (Niles)

God only knows if they are Kosher, let alone Kosher for Passover.

Most greek-owned matzoh balls are these giant fluff balls that are 90% broth.

My grandma's matzoh balls, the way my father likes them, are heavy, almost hard, with sort of a glossy surface. He says they should be black in the middle, but I've never seen them like that. Letting them rest overnight in the fridge seems to help keep them firm. And no bigger than a squash ball -- some of the soups I've had they're the size of 12" softballs.

I just made a big batch of MBs tonight. To the standard recipe on the Streit's Matzoh Meal package (using seltzer), I added nearly a teaspoon of freshly ground pepper and a generous teaspoon of dried thyme leaves, crumbled. I rolled them no larger than a black walnut (slightly smaller than a golf ball; the recipe makes 10, but I got 16 out of it). I use oil rather than chicken fat, and do my cooking in water, not chicken stock. They keep surprisingly well done that way.

I made a sort of mish-mosh soup after they were cooked. To my stock, I added cooked jasmine rice and cooked fine egg noodles. Mighty tasty indeed, and comforting on such a cold and crappy night, even to a goy.

JoelF wrote:Most greek-owned matzoh balls are these giant fluff balls that are 90% broth.

aka 'floaters'.

JoelF wrote: My grandma's matzoh balls, the way my father likes them, are heavy, almost hard, with sort of a glossy surface. He says they should be black in the middle, but I've never seen them like that. Letting them rest overnight in the fridge seems to help keep them firm.

aka 'sinkers'. In my experience a dark center results from a)chicken fat and b)undercooking.

I don't have recipe for you but can tell you where to go to get fantastic matzoh balls.....Once Upon A Bagel in Highland Park.

brschwartz wrote:Any know any good recipes for Matzo balls for Passover? We always make them and they never come out fluffy and fall apart. Thanks!

Brschwartz,

You've gotten good suggestions from matzo ball masters, but let me add on little trick my grandmother taught me. Never cook matzo balls in the chicken soup stock, always plain water.

If you cook matzo balls in soup they absorb liquid and the soup flavor becomes, at least for my families taste, too dominate, not to mention soaking up a good portion of stock destined for the table.

Plain water also allows the matzo ball to simply be a neutral vehicle for the flavors of the soup, as opposed to a strong element on its own.

My 'recipe' is simply off the back of the Manischewitz box, but I always use stock, where the recipe calls for stock or water, and chicken fat skimmed from the soup for the oil portion. Also, importantly, don't rush the chill in the refrigerator stage.

Enjoy,
Gary

G Wiv wrote:If you cook matzo balls in soup they absorb liquid and the soup flavor becomes, at least for my families taste, too dominate, not to mention soaking up a good portion of stock destined for the table.

Gary,

This is a great suggestion, and one I wish more people would heed. More often than not (and twice this weekend), matzoh balls become big mushy balls of broth, adding nothing, contrasting the soup in no way. Cooking them in water will most definitely temper the mush-broth behavior that I have come to loathe.

Personally, I think matzoh balls should be like good BBQ: tender, but with some tooth to them. I like them to sink and have a bit of a harder core, but I should be able to cut through them with my spoon.

My father took this a bit further and enjoyed a bowl of rock-hard sinkers. He felt that if he couldn't break a window with a matzoh ball, then he wasn't going to enjoy it. (This test was rarely, if ever, put into actual practice in our home).

Best,
Michael / EC

Hi,

EvilRonnie simmers his matzoh balls for 60-90 minutes. Is he alone in doing these long simmers? I usually put the balls into boiling water, then simmer for 20 minutes. What do others find as successful cooking methods for matzoh balls?

I plan to use salted water instead of broth. I usually cook them in broth, though I will try to cook them separate from the broth. Plus I don't want to cloud my broth.

Regards,

After years of making sinkers that could chip teeth, I have finally started making floaters without problems.

The two points I always remember: First to always use Seltzer water. The second to use Jumbo Eggs. Also, the refrigeration step seems important.

I would now like to start using Gary's suggestion and cook them in water and then use them in soup. Personally I am going to do my version of Jewish/SouthIndian mishmash. Make the Matzoballs and dunk them in Rasam and make my version of 'Paruppu-urundai Rasam"

Cathy2 wrote:Hi,

EvilRonnie simmers his matzoh balls for 60-90 minutes. Is he alone in doing these long simmers? I usually put the balls into boiling water, then simmer for 20 minutes. What do others find as successful cooking methods for matzoh balls?

I plan to use salted water instead of broth. I usually cook them in broth, though I will try to cook them separate from the broth. Plus I don't want to cloud my broth.

Regards,

I find that 20 minutes is usually sufficient . . . for dense matzoh balls, which is what I prefer. At about the 25-30 minute mark, I believe you're entering the territory of fluffy matzoh balls, which I'm not a fan of.

As for cooking, I take a slightly different approach - half water (unsalted) and half chicken stock (unsalted). I prefer to salt the matzoh ball dough itself because this gives me more control over the sodium. If I use salt water and/or salted stock as my cooking vessel, then I risk matzoh balls which are too salty. Also, I don't like to cook or heat the balls in the soup I'm serving because that clouds the soup. Otherwise, I too follow the recipe on the Manishewitz box, but like Gary I make sure to use skimmed chicken fat for the oil. As for serving the soup, fresh dill is always a must for me - love it!

LTH,

I've had unusually good success with matzo balls this Passover, light, yet retaining pleasing resistance to the chew, well defined structural integrity and evenly cooked all the way through. A few slight changes from my posted method up thread, mainly making the matzo ball mixture earlier, at least a 5-hour rest in the refrigerator. Its my opinion the longer rest gives the matzo meal time to fully hydrate resulting in better texture and even cooking.

Other slight changes include using Streit's Matzoh Meal, which seems finer ground than Manischewitz, and taking care to evenly form into golf ball size for a 30-minute simmer in lightly salted water.

Matzo Ball Soup



Enjoy,
Gary

G Wiv wrote:Its my opinion the longer rest gives the matzo meal time to fully hydrate resulting in better texture and even cooking.

I agree with you . . . and that's why I let them rest for a shorter time. I find that a very short rest and less lengthy cooking time results in a more dense (sometimes rock-like) matzoh ball which I prefer. Damn my guests who prefer the light ones . . . that forces me to prepare two sets.

Matzoh balls are one of the very few traditional Ashkenazi foods that I've never made. But my grandmother always swears by a pinch of nutmeg in the batter. She's almost 93, and she's made a LOT of matzo balls.

Battle of the Matzoh Balls

Article includes a side-by-side comparison of various matzoh ball recipes. The vegetarian variant was favored with ingredients:

Ingredients
• 4 large eggs, separated
• 1 teaspoon salt
• Dash cayenne pepper
• 2 teaspoons white onion, grated
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
• 3/4 cup matzoh meal
• 7 cups vegetable stock
• Additional stock for serving

Regards,

Hi,

I met a Persian Jew recently whose family paired matzoh balls with a ground turkey meatball seasoned with cumin (and coriander?) with ground chickpea flour to help bind. Since it has been mentioned, I have a brain tickle wishing to give this a try.

What really impressed was a picture of the matzoh ball with the turkey meatball and they were sized approximately the same. That I consider a real trick given how matzoh balls expand.

At Highland Park's Jewish Jewel, they offered Matzoh Ball mix from Lipton's. Is this a new player in the field? I noticed they had helpful recipes for Italian stuffed Matzoh balls. Is this a test kitchen idea or grounded in tradition?

Regards,
Cathy2

Cathy2 wrote:At Highland Park's Jewish Jewel, they offered Matzoh Ball mix from Lipton's. Is this a new player in the field?
Cathy2

Lipton's Matzoh Ball Mix has been around for years.

Bon Appetit has a very active youtube channel and they're trying to become the hipster's Cooks Illustrated. They do a lot of "best version of" tutorials and the content is pretty interesting overall. They swear by schmaltz:

https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/bas-best-matzo-balls

...Dat's a very-nice-lookin'-broth Gary- and your scallion food styling adds a great touch.
I've got "a thing" about making sure my Chicken broth is the proper "color"-
I squeeze some xtra-color out
by adding the onion skins for their coloring,
removing with tongs before serving.
Or- there's always- Bijol"- or ground Annato Seeds- same ingredient that makes Cheese yellow.

Thank you Man of Steel! I also use onion skins in my broth, never tried Annato but did, once, taking a cue from Evil Ronnie, who was the Executive Chef of the Standard Club for a dozen years or more, saffron. Evil, as he mentions upthread, uses duck fat in his matzo balls.

Frankly, though they worked well, used scallions as I was out of both parsley and/or chives. We had a few chives popping up in the garden but the recent snow was not kind to the tender just sprouting chives.

I should have made a larger batch of soup and matzo balls. We had it for dinner, then I had a bowl for breakfast the next day and Ellen had one for lunch, done.

Speaking of chicken soup, it always puts me in mind of my maternal grandmother who always seemed to have a pot simmering on the stove. She used kosher chicken including the feet, which my brother and I fought over. I've long thought kosher chicken gives the broth deeper flavor from the salt used in making the chickens kosher.