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iOUTHERN ISRAELITE April 21, 1978
Best Wishes
For A Happy
Passover
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Kosher
Products
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Passover
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The perfect Matzoball!
by Carolyn Yalkut
Mammy’s little baby loves matzo,
matzo.
Mammy's little baby loves matzo
balls.
Mammy's little baby wants pots
and pots of
Lots and lots of matzoballs!
—Allan Sherman
My mother awoke one morning
to find the matzoballs she had
prepared the night before flying
around the house like UFJOs—
Unidentified Flying Jewish
Objects. A second-generation
American, she had always
depended on her mother for
matzoballs. But this Pesach, not
only was my mother going to make
them, she was going to make her
Aunt Ruthie’s matzoballs, the best
she’d ever had.
Great Aunt Ruth does indeed
serve unique matzoballs. Her
method is singular: She mixes
matzo meal with egg—in alternate
throws—and soaks the matzoballs
overnight in chicken soup.
The morning after my mother
tried the recipe, she took the
chicken soup and matzoballs out
of the refrigerator, put the kettle
on the stove, lit a fire under it, and
created a new form of life.
I exaggerate. What actually
happened was that the soup turned
bright blue and those poor
matzoballs. in bright blue foam,
tummelled over the sides of the
pot. No one knows why.
In 1929, the distinguished
French food wrjter Edouard de
Pomiane gallantly called the
matzoball “a sort of quenelle" —
but it isn’t. It’s a matzoball. The
word smiles; it’s modest,
anticlimactic, slapstick. However
light and fluffy, “matzoballs”
always deflate a sentence. An actor
couldn’t speak the line O.
Matzoball! without invoking
laughter. Matzoballs are Jewish
jokes. ’
This joke is profound in the
hands of a Jew. And there are as
many recipes for matzoballs as
there are disputes in the Talmud.
Oral tradition falls silent when a
good Jewish cook is asked how to
make matzoballs. “Oh, I couldn’t
tell you,” one may say. “I don’t
even know myself,” adds another.
“A little of this, some of that,”
offers a third. “You know,” advises
a fourth. “It’s very easy,” sighs th*
last, “but like everything else, it
takes years of experience." The
men have Kabbala, the women
have their matzoball recipes.
And the perfect matzoball
recipe, like the name of God, shall
never be spoken out loud.
In the beginning of time, Adam
and Eve were driven from Eden for
a breach of received gastronomic
principle. Since then, snakes have
eaten dust and Jews have eaten
matzoballs. Surely a Jew eats as
many kinds of matzoballs as an
Eskimo eats snow, yet there are
182 words in Eskimo for snow and
only one word in Yiddish for
matzoball: knaidle.
Recently, a young woman of
perhaps questionable refinement
advertised for a man in the
personals of The New York
Review of Books by listing among
her attributes her love for Frank
Sinatra, Jane Austen, bicycle
riding and knaidlach. Perhaps
knaidlach have been used in
courtship. At a wedding I recently
went tcf, they were the subject of a
dispute.
Aunt Gussie, on the groom’s
side, one of those women who
wield power with charm wherever
they go, was holding court at Table
6. Even the bride’s relatives were
rapt. “Always beat with a fork,”
she was saying. “Never a spoon.
Forks make them light.” Everyone
around the table nodded in placid
assent.
“Never lift the lid off a cooking
pot. Not for a second. Not even to
sniff.”
Ah...she said it so well.
“The batter? Chill! Two hours,
at least.”
Two hours? The bride’s cousins
were aghast. “That’s not food,”
someone said. “That’s a weapon.”
In fact, those who have suffered
have called them “cannonballs.”
Aunt Gussie was right. So was
the wounded cousin. Contra
dictions are married. Therearetwo
kinds of matzoballs, good and bad.
Good matzoballs are light.
The basic ingredients of
matzoballs are eggs and matzo
meal. The technique is to beat the
eggs, add the matzo meal, mold the
batter into balls, and boil. To
change the flavor and texture of
matzoball, modify the technique
or the ingredients.
Add more matzo meal, for
example, and you get a heavier
matzoball. Chicken soup, plain
water, club soda, boiled potato,
and shmaltz added to the batter
lighten the matzoball. Refriger
ation, contrary to the popular
notion, does not make matzoballs
heavier, but does make the batter
more malleable. Undercooking
makes matzoballs heavy. Beat the
egg yolk and the egg whites
separately and you get the lightest
possible matzoball.
A Hungarian method of
lightening matzoballs is to add a
small quantity of mashed boiled
potato to the batter. Too much
potato gives a very fine texture but,
unfortunately, overwhelms the
flavor.
Beware: There is an inverse
relationship between texture and
flavor. Some matzoballs are
almost too light to taste: Don’t
spare herbs and spices in the
making of very light matzoballs.
Nutmeg and pepper, ginger and
fresh parsley are divine, though 1
never new a grandmother who
thought so. Shmaltz is used as
much for its rich, distinctive flavor
as for its magnificent texture.
Other shortenings, of course, may
be substituted for shmaltz in
matzoball recipes, and the result
will be almost as good.
After mixing the eggs and matzo
meal, herbs and spices, et cetera,
taste the batter before cooking the
matzoballs. Make sure the first
matzoball in the pot doesn't
disintegrate. If it does, add more
matzo meal to the mixture.
Simmer most matzoballs in
chicken soup for about thirty
minutes, without lifting the lid, so
that they are infused with flavor
and moisture.
Matzoballs made with beaten
egg whites don’t expand when
cooked in soup. Simmer thetfl in
boiling salted water instead.
Before serving, test one matzoball
to make sure it is done.
National Jewish Monthly
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