Grandma’s matzo balls
Team Floaters or Team Sinkers?
Mets or Yankees? Floaters or Sinkers?
People can get very passionate about their matzo balls. Light and fluffy or dense and chewy?
Sitting like boulders in the bottom of your bowl, or gently bobbing on top?
Chances are good that if you grew up eating matzo balls, you like them the way you were served them when you were a child.
If you did not grow up eating matzo balls, let me first say, I’m sorry. And I could, with great generosity of spirit, recommend that you try them both ways and decide for yourself.
But…you might as well save yourself the trouble, because the way that we make them, the way my grandmother made them, is the best. These are the World’s Best Matzo Balls.
And my family is Team Floaters, all the way. In fact, we are the torch bearers in the matzo ball parade!
But, before we go any further, what’s a matzo ball without a steaming bowl of Jewish Chicken Soup? Click here for my Grandma’s recipe.
The trick to light and fluffy matzo balls is mostly in the technique—how they’re mixed and how they’re formed. Some people achieve a super light texture by whipping the egg whites separately or by adding a bit of baking powder. I’ve tried the baking powder trick, and I have to say that I didn’t notice a difference. I also tried whipping the whites separately. My opinion? I like my matzo balls light, but not airborne. When they start to defy gravity they have almost no texture at all. My grandmother did none of those things and neither do I.
Then there’s the liquid that you choose to use. Water will produce dense matzo balls. Using stock instead of water adds some flavor, but again, won’t give you feather-light matzo balls. The key to perfect matzo balls is to use ice cold seltzer.
Finally, there’s the issue of fat. Using a neutral fruit or nut oil, such as avocado oil, is a healthy choice. It’s also, by virtue of being neutral, tasteless. You could go with a good olive oil, but then they won’t have that Jewish taste. They’ll taste good, but different. My first choice is always chicken schmaltz. That’s how you’ll achieve that old world flavor. And it’s not as unhealthy as it sounds—while it’s a good idea to limit animal fat, using schmaltz is no worse than using butter. Considering the proportions in the batter, a single portion contains less than 1 teaspoon of fat. My guess is, that unless you’re vegetarian or have a “No Animal Fat” order from your physician, it won’t kill you once in a while.
Chicken schmaltz, chicken fat rendered with onions, can be found frozen in Jewish markets, as well as in some supermarkets in areas that have a sizable Jewish population. You can also make it yourself, which is better, but takes some planning. Every time I make chicken, I trim away bits of skin and fat and save them in the freezer in a zip bag. I usually make it twice a year—just before Passover and just before the High Holy Days. A jar of schmaltz stays fresh in the fridge for several months, and even longer in the freezer.
Here’s how to make it.
If you’re making matzo balls for vegetarians, you’ll probably want my recipe for Not-Chicken Soup. Click here to go there.
Of course, if you’re making matzo balls for vegetarians, you’ll have to use oil. When I make them with oil, either for the above reason—half my family is vegetarian—or because I’m out of schmaltz, I usually add one or more of my “options” that I list below, to give them more flavor.
Equally important is the way you cook your matzo balls. You can’t make them in your soup because your soup will be cloudy and, well, just…no. Some people cook them in stock and then toss the stock. They say it adds flavor. Maybe it does, but I’ve never tried it. My grandmother would have been horrified—she’d never have done something so wasteful and extravagant. She always made them in fresh, boiling water, and so do I.
But this is important! Do not under-salt the water. It should taste pleasantly salty, like the ocean. It’s science, guys! Remember learning about osmosis in high school? If your water is under-salted, it will draw the salt out of the matzo balls and they will be tasteless.
It’s also important to choose the right pot. You need to use a big pot, like a pasta pot, because the matzo balls need plenty of water in which to swim. Go for wide, rather than deep, so that they can all bob around on the surface while they cook. If you need to make them in more than one batch, so be it. Over-crowd the pot and they just might fall apart. I speak from experience.
A quick and relevant anecdote—Recently, I got a craving for matzo balls. I beat my eggs and schmaltz in a bowl and then opened my box of matzo meal. There were horrible little black weevils crawling all around in the box! It was too late to go out to buy more. I certainly didn’t want to waste the ingredients I’d already whipped up. I had to improvise. I had a box of matzo. What’s matzo meal, after all, but ground up matzo? I broke up a few sheets of matzo and tossed them into the food processor. A couple of “wooshes” and I had matzo meal…. Almost. It wasn’t quite as fine as the stuff in the box, nor were the crumbs uniform in size. But…. It was just for us. No company. And I wanted matzo balls now! I used my ground-up matzo and hoped for the best. They were fabulous! So bear in mind that if you don’t have any matzo meal, you can use this method.
I’d like to talk about possible additions. Adding other ingredients to the batter is a bit like painting the lily. Matzo balls are perfect as they are. But you know I like to play with my food. Here are some additions that I’ve tried and loved.
Adding a little finely chopped dill or parsley is always nice, especially to add flavor if you’re not using schmaltz.
You can’t go wrong with a bit of grated lemon peel and/or a smidgen of pressed garlic.
Imagine several matzo balls, each one a different color, floating in your bowl of soup. Vegetable powders are available online. A little goes a long way. They even add an extra boost of nutrition! Try tomato, spinach, butterfly pea flower (blue), purple sweet potato, carrot, beet… full disclaimer: Some of these are not certified kosher, if that’s important to you. For me, since it’s just pure vegetable, it’s not an issue, but we’re all where we are on our journeys.
Powdered saffron gives them a lovely color and flavor.
You can thinly slice some mushrooms and sauté them in a bit of oil or schmaltz until crispy at the edges, then chop them finely and add them to the batter. This is especially nice if you’ve added mushrooms to your soup.
A little finely chopped gribenes is an amazing addition. Don’t know what that is? Click on the link for how to make chicken schmaltz and you’ll find out!
Let me know if you try any other ideas of your own.
World’s Best Matzo Balls
Do you want to see several small matzo balls in each bowl, or one giant, deli-style matzo ball sitting proudly in the center? I like to make them fairly big and serve one per person. To do that, I use a cookie scoop that’s 2 inches in diameter. With this recipe and this size scoop, you should get 8 matzo balls, or 8 servings. I also sometimes make them smaller, with a 1 ½ inch scoop. It’s your call.
To celebrate Parashat Beresheet (Genesis), or for Rosh Hashanah, consider making Matzo Ball Planets for your Cosmic Chicken Soup. Just made your matzo balls in different sizes and use vegetable powders, as suggested above, to make them in various colors. How to turn Chicken Soup into Cosmic Chicken Soup? Add some pasta stars, and perhaps zigzag-cut carrots or butternut squash for a lightning effect.
Ingredients:
4 tablespoons chicken schmaltz or oil
4 large eggs
¼ cup seltzer
1 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon white pepper
1 cup commercial matzo meal, or from ground up matzo (about 3 sheets)
Optional: any of the additions suggested above
Method:
In a medium bowl, beat the eggs until completely homogenous and very foamy, with a fork. I suppose you could use a whisk, but Grandma didn’t have a whisk.
Add all the other ingredients except for the matzo meal and stir to combine thoroughly. Sprinkle in the matzo meal, gradually, while stirring. Then, refrigerate uncovered for at least an hour. I often make the batter the night before.
When you’re ready to cook them, bring a large pot of well salted water to a boil. See the above note about choosing the right pot.
Using a fork, give the batter a good stir.
Wet your hands under cold running water. I use a cookie scoop so that my matzo balls are uniform in size, but if you don’t have one, just try to make them all close to the same size. Grandma used a soup spoon.
Scoop up the batter, drop it into a wet hand, and gently roll it into a ball using both palms. Do not pack the dough. You want it to stay soft and light.
As you make each one, gently slide it into the simmering water. When all the matzo balls are in the pot, cover it and let them simmer for an hour. Don’t let them boil hard, just a gentle simmer will do. Don’t remove cover during the cooking process; you don’t want the steam to escape.
When they’re done, remove the matzo balls from the pot with a slotted spoon. Drain them very well and store in the refrigerator in an air tight container, to be reheated in your soup at serving time.
You can freeze matzo balls. The texture will suffer only slightly.
When time is limited, you do what you need to do.