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Matzoth Soup Balls
Jewish Recipe Soak 3 matzoth in cold water, squeeze dry, and add 1 pint meal. Put 1 tablespoonful rendered suet in a frying-pan with 6 sliced onions, and cook till brown; then add the matzoth, 6 well-beaten eggs, 1/2 teaspoonful salt, and 1 saltspoonful each of mace, ginger, and pepper. Shape into balls, drop into hot oil, and cook slowly, so they will not break to pieces, for half an hour.
A fried, onion-rich version of matzo balls rather than the poached kind. The quantities are generous and the seasoning measures are pre-standard, so read them before you start.
- MatzothThree whole matzo sheets, soaked and wrung out, give perhaps a cup of soft pulp. Squeeze harder than feels right; residual water is what makes the balls slump in the oil.
- A pint of mealMatzo meal was measured by volume, so a pint means 2 cups, about 8 to 9 oz. Add it gradually rather than all at once, since the moisture left in the soaked matzo varies and the mixture should be stiff enough to hold a shape.
- SaltspoonfulA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon. So a quarter teaspoon each of mace, ginger and pepper, against half a teaspoon of salt, which is light for this volume of batter.
- Rendered suetBeef suet, rendered to clear fat, was one of the fats available for a kosher meat meal; rendered chicken fat was at least as common and is easier to buy. One tablespoon for six onions is barely enough, and two or three will give you a better brown.
- Six onionsThat is a substantial amount of onion for the batter, well over a pound once sliced. Cook them down slowly to a deep golden brown and let them cool before they meet the eggs, or the eggs will set on contact.
- ChillingThe mixture handles far better after 30 minutes in the refrigerator. This is the hinge of the recipe: cold, firm batter is what keeps the balls from breaking apart in the fat, which is the failure the original warns against.
- Frying"Hot oil" and "slowly" pull in opposite directions. Around 325F browns without scorching; the recipe's half an hour is far longer than these need. Ten to twelve minutes, turning, is enough to cook the egg through and colour the outside.
- Yield and servingNo yield is stated, and the quantities make a large batch. Drain them and drop them into hot chicken soup at the table rather than letting them sit in it, or the fried crust softens away.
Matzo balls, knaidlach in Yiddish, exist because Passover forbids leavened grain: matzo meal, ground from unleavened bread, takes the place of flour in a dumpling that would otherwise be made with bread or semolina in the Central European tradition. The poached version served in chicken broth is the one most Americans now know, but this recipe fries the balls instead, giving a firmer, richer ball that could be eaten on its own as well as in soup. The heavy hand with browned onion and rendered beef suet, and the mace and ginger, point to an older European seasoning habit rather than the plainer American style that followed. Its inclusion in a general-market household compilation, under the bare heading "Jewish Recipe," reflects how such collections handled immigrant cooking around the turn of the twentieth century.