Soup Balls
Chop the white meat of a chicken very fine and season highly with salt, pepper, onion juice and a little thyme or curry; add enough yolk of egg to bind together.
Roll into very small balls, shake in a plate of flour till covered and poach in boiling water.
A soup garnish rather than a dish in itself: tiny chicken quenelles poached separately and dropped into clear broth at the last minute. The recipe assumes you know the balls should be small enough to fit on a soup spoon.
- The hinge: poach, don't boilDespite the wording, a full rolling boil will break the balls apart before the egg sets. Bring the water to a boil, then drop it to a bare shiver before the balls go in; they are done when they float and feel firm, roughly 3 to 4 minutes for half-inch balls.
- Size"Very small" means marble-sized, about half an inch. Larger balls need longer poaching and turn dense at the centre.
- Chopping the meatHand-chopping with a heavy knife gives a better texture than a food processor, which shears the meat into paste and yields a rubbery ball. If using a processor, pulse and stop while the mixture is still slightly coarse.
- Egg yolk quantityFor the breast meat of one chicken, roughly 8 to 10 oz, start with one yolk and add a second only if the mixture will not hold a shape. Too much yolk makes the balls custardy.
- Onion juiceA period ingredient meaning the liquid pressed or grated from a raw onion, used where chopped onion would spoil the texture. Grate a peeled onion on the fine side of a box grater and use the juice; a teaspoon is plenty.
- Season assertively"Season highly" is meant literally, since the balls are eaten in a mild broth that dilutes them. Poach one test ball, taste it, then adjust the raw mixture before rolling the rest.
- Cook them apart from the soupPoaching in plain water rather than in the soup keeps the broth clear; the flour coating would otherwise cloud it. Lift the balls out with a slotted spoon and add them to hot soup at serving.
- YieldYield depends on how small the balls are rolled; one breast will garnish several bowls of clear soup.
Soup balls belong to the large family of forcemeat garnishes — quenelles, godiveau, farci balls — that turn-of-the-century American cookbooks inherited from French practice and simplified for home kitchens. A clear consommé or bouillon was expected to arrive at the table with something in it, and the something was often made from meat already on hand: leftover breast from a roast fowl, veal, or fish. The curry option in the seasoning list suggests a period in which curry powder was used in American kitchens as a general-purpose flavouring rather than a signal of any particular cuisine. That the recipe gives no quantities at all is also characteristic of the genre.