Full disclosure here. This is about going for the most insane bowl of chicken soup ever. Nothing else. I am not Jewish. Didn’t grow up eating matzo ball soup. I have no fond memories or preconceptions. I know what I’ve been served at delicatessens and I want better. Better broth. Lighter matzo balls. More chicken. Just better.
Matzo ball soup is about the broth
It’s the broth that makes it. And to make really great matzo ball soup you need to make fantastic broth. That’s what makes this recipe work. The broth is over the top. Like really over the top. Lots of recipes say toss a chicken into a pot with some carrots. Some onions. Maybe some garlic. Some water. Lots of aromatics and one chicken. That’s vegetable broth with chicken. It’s tasty. But it’s not completely over the top. Not what I want. I say start your recipe where everyone else finishes off. Make really good homemade chicken stock. Then poach a whole chicken in that chicken stock. Double down. And don’t go crazy on the vegetables. A bit of onion. A few chunks of carrot. Some peppercorns. That’s enough of that. Chicken is the star. Keep it that way.
A well salted chicken
Where I live you can get kosher chickens. I don’t really care if a chicken is kosher or not. But the one’s they sell around here are well salted. Brined. Makes it easy to get a savoury bird. You don’t need to buy a kosher chicken though. You can brine the bird yourself instead. Just make sure you do. It makes a difference. Dry-brining is easy. The rule is about 1 Tbsp of kosher salt for 5 pounds of bird. 24 hours in the fridge and you are good to go. Works with turkey too. Try a dry brined turkey some time. That is a game changer. Don’t cook your chicken to death. Use an instant read thermometer. The chicken is ready to come out of the broth when it hits 175F. That makes a difference too. Moist, well-seasoned, flavourful chicken. That’s what you want in your matzo ball soup.
Schmaltz makes the matzo balls special
Scmaltz is a fancy word for rendered chicken fat. Like pork lard or duck fat except it comes from a chicken. And it’s what makes matzo balls special. You can’t beat that deep chicken taste. And you don’t get it with vegetable oil. And you have to make it yourself. At least I can’t buy it where I live. But it’s not hard. And it doesn’t take long. You are going to need to skin your bird before you poach it. Take the skin and fat from the bird. Cut it up. Toss it into a frying pan. Cook over low heat. The fat renders out slowly. You are done when the skin is golden. Pour that fat into a small container until you are ready to make your matzo balls. And those bits of crisply, golden chicken skin? Salt them up and eat them warm. Seriously. Could be the next bar snack. Super tasty. Or toss them into the soup. That’s what I do. That’s it. I’m a matzo ball soup heretic. But I don’t care. This is not tradition. Not my grandmothers recipe handed down on a scrap of paper. This is epic chicken soup. I care about that.
