Recipe - Official Jewish Mother Chicken Soup

1 Kosher chicken cut into
large hunks (I have never
tried this with a
nonkosher chicken, so I
have no idea how soup from
one would taste. However,
it would taste somewhat
different.)
Several (3 to 6) large sharp
white onions, cut or
cut or sliced up .
1 Carrots, chopped (optional)
(up to 2)
Enough water to cover the
chicken
Salt and pepper to taste

MATZOH BALLS
2 tablespoon Melted chicken fat or oil,
approx (I think it's
better if you use the fat
from the soup.)
2 lg Eggs, slightly beaten
1 teaspoon Salt, about
2 tablespoon Soup, about (not hot enough
to cook the beaten eggs in
the mixtureuse the soup
after it's been cooled in
the fridge) or water (It
tastes better if you use
the soup)
One half cup Matzoh meal, about

1) Place the chicken, onions, and carrots in a large stock pot.
2) Put the water into another pot.
3) Boil the water and pour it over the chicken, onions, and carrots.
Make sure you put in just enough to cover the chicken and veggies in the
pot; if you put in any more, the soup will be watery unless you boil off
the excess water, which takes a while.)
4) Loosely cover or partially cover the stock pot and simmer for several
hoursthe longer, the better, usually.
5) Strain soup, pouring the liquid portion into a large pot.
6) Place pot with liquid in the fridge until it cools.
7) Take rendered chicken fat off the surface of the cooled soup. Reserve
the fat. (An alternate way to separate the fat from the soup is to pour
the soup into a measuring cup that has a spout at the bottom rather than
at the top. This way, you can pour off the soup from the bottom of the
measuring cup and leave the fat.)
8) Reheat soup to a boil and throw in matzoh balls and, if you like,
onion, carrot,and/or chicken bits from earlier stages in making this soup.
9) Cook matzoh balls, add salt and pepper, and serve.
MATZOH BALLS:
1) Blend fat and eggs together.
2) Add matzoh meal and salt, blend well.
3) Add soup stock and mix until uniform.
4) Cover mixing bowl and put it in the fridge for about 1530 minutes.
(The longer you leave the matzoh ball mixture in the fridge, the fluffier
the matzoh balls turn out. My mom makes them fluffy, but some people like
them dense.)
5) Make mixture into balls and drop them into boiling soup.(I don't
think you need to make the mixture into balls; the matzoh balls taste just
fine if you simply drop the mixture into the soup by spoonfuls.)
6) Boil for a few minuteslonger for a mixture that makes dense balls,
esp. if you've made it into large balls, shorter if you're using a mixture
that makes fluffier balls.)
What to do with soup leftovers: If you've made a good chicken soup,
you've boiled the chicken for a while, and the solid chicken now tastes
like chewy nothing. Instead of throwing it all away, here's what we used
to do with the remaining chicken:
Curry Chicken with Coconut Raisin Rice: Cook some rice the way you
ordinarily would, but add some unsweetened shredded coconut and raisins to
the water when you go to boil the rice. Shred the chicken. It should fall
apart easily. Heat a little vegetable oil in the bottom of a large frying
pan. When the oil is hot, throw in some turmeric, some cumin seedseither
ground or whole,some caraway seeds, and some cut or sliced up onion. Feel free to
go a little heavy on the onion and spices; remember, you're going to be
eating this with rice, and the chicken has no strong flavor of its own. If
you don't have any of these particular spices on hand, just use cut or sliced up
onion and curry powder. It'll still be OK.
When the onion is translucent, add the shredded chicken and fry in the
frying pan. Make sure to stir frequently; this stuff cooks quickly, since
the chicken is already cooked. Add ground red pepper and stir through.
Serve curried chicken with raisin coconut rice. This also tastes very
good cold.
Posted to Recipe Archive 10 November 96
Date: Sun, 10 Nov 96 12:23:20 EST
submitted by: silverman.30@osu.edu