By Andrea Daly
It’s hot, it’s delicious, it’s Jewish penicillin, it’s matzo ball soup. Growing up there were two things I wanted at every single Jewish holiday, even if it was the wrong holiday for it: latkes and matzo ball soup. It was hard to convince my mom to make me latkes just whenever I wanted them, but luckily she’ll make me the soup whenever I want. In fact, it’s my mom’s cure to just about everything. Stomachache? Matzo ball soup is the answer. Cold? Matzo ball soup, duh. Your toe hurts? Eat some matzo ball soup, you’ll feel better
Not only is it delicious to eat, and let’s be honest here, entertaining to say, but it’s also fun to make. I have so many memories in the kitchen with my mom and sister, making the dough and forming the balls that would later be dropped into piping-hot chicken soup.
Matzo itself is dry and fairly tasteless, it takes like, half a tub of butter for there to be even a little bit of moisture in that cardboard cracker, but surprisingly, matzo ball soup is nothing like that at all. The balls are moist and taste like you rolled up all of the noodles in chicken noodle soup into a huge ball and plunked it into the center of the bowl.
There are a million different ways to make the soup, too. Traditionally in my house we just make it out of a box because the directions are on it and it’s the fastest way to soup. But, when we go to Passover at our family’s house, the Israeli woman who makes it for us makes it the way they make it in Israel, which has a very different flavor. When we make it at home it is very chicken-y and the matzo ball itself is very moist, not dense at all. Whereas the traditional Israeli way is to make the broth less chicken-y and more flavored with vegetables, with the matzo ball being smaller and more dense. Though both are great, I prefer the boxed version with all of the spices.
Because I have so many memories with my mom and sister, and because the soup is so fantastically great, I know I will pass this boxed tradition down to my children. I can also guarantee that my solution to everything they complain about will be matzo ball soup. And the funny thing is, whether it’s because it actually works or just because I’ve been trained to believe it does, but I always feel better after a bowl of matzo ball soup, regardless of what is wrong.
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