Homemade no-knead bread & matzo ball soup
Apr. 14th, 2010 04:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
algTonight's supper is matzo ball soup and fresh bread. I make matzo ball soup about once a month in the winter (twice in months with holidays!). For those who don't know, matzo balls are sort of like dumplings, but instead of using regular flour, we use matzo meal, which is flour made from crushed matzo -- unleavened bread. It usually has the texture of medium grind stone-ground cornmeal when it is dry, although there are many different options, including a "cake flour" made from matzo.
Apparently one can use matzo meal to do things like bread meats or in place of flour in potato pancakes. I've only ever used it for matzo balls, though, because my family doesn't keep kosher. This means that during Passover, when Jews are not supposed to eat leavened breads or several other foods, matzo products are supposed to sub in for leavened bread products, but my family doesn't stick to that, and so you'll sometimes find us eating challah (and soy and rice and other "forbidden" foods) during the ten days of Passover. Oh well!
Matzo balls can be made in many different ways. I like mine to be slightly heavier, but I'm including a way to make them much lighter for those who prefer them fluffy.
I also have to say that the best matzo ball soup I ever had was made by an old roommate of mine who was as goyish (non-Jewish) as they come! So if you're worried that you can't make good matzo ball soup because you aren't Jewish, put that thought out of your head! I guarantee you, there is no magical Jewish matzo ball dust required for delicious soup.
Matzo Ball Soup
For the matzo balls:
1/2 cup whole grain matzo meal
1/2 cup regular matzo meal (you can use 1 cup of regular matzo meal and cut out the whole grain if you want)
1/4 cup oil (I use olive oil for a more dense matzo ball; you can use any kind of vegetable oil for a lighter matzo ball)
1/4 cup broth (For a lighter matzo ball, you can use 1/4 cup unflavored seltzer)
1/2 tsp kosher salt
4 eggs
Crack the eggs into a bowl and beat them. Add the oil, the broth/seltzer, the matzo meal, and the salt (in that order), and mix together with a fork. Cover the bowl (I usually just use a plate, but you can use plastic wrap too), and refrigerate for 30 - 45 minutes.
For the soup:
6 cups of vegetable broth
3 stalks celery, cut into half-moons
3 large or 4 medium carrots, cut into rounds
2 medium onions, roughly diced or cut into half-moons, whichever you prefer (I dice mine by splitting the onion in half, cutting each half into half, and then chopping it)
olive oil
Put the broth on the stove with the heat turned to medium-high and cover it.
In a separate pan, put all the vegetables and enough oil to coat them, and put the heat on medium. You're not frying these vegetables -- you want the onion to get a little color, but mostly you want to soften them and add flavor.
This step is also important because the oil is going to add some body to the broth. This is my trick for making the vegetable broth mimic the chicken stock my family was used to eating with matzo balls. But just putting oil into the broth tastes funny and looks weird; when the vegetables sweat into the oil, it gives a much better, deeper, richer flavor.
It will probably take about a half an hour of cooking for your vegetables to get to the right point. Don't salt them, because that will make your soup salty -- unless you like the saltiness! We tend to shy away from a lot of salt in my family, because my mother has high blood pressure.
Put the vegetables into the soup. By now, your matzo ball mix should be about ready. Bring the soup up to a boil -- the best way to do this is to cover the pot and crank the heat up to high for a couple of minutes.
The best way I've found to make the matzo balls is to use a disher. This is the style I use
although mine is 1-1/2 tablespoons. (I also use it to make perfectly-sized chocolate chip cookies! But that's another entry.) The other way to make matzo balls is to wet your hands, spoon matzo ball mix into your wet hands, and make the spoonful into a ball. I find this messy and annoying. My grandma just spoons it up and dumps it in, so if you don't care if your matzo balls are actually round, just do that!
Once the soup is boiling, use your preferred method to put the matzo balls into the soup. (That link is a picture.) If using the disher, I suggest swishing the disher in the boiling soup between balls, to make it easier to get the matzo ball mix out of the disher without extra pieces floating in the soup.
Then cover the soup, and turn the heat down to low.
The matzo balls need to cook for 30 - 40 minutes depending on their size... I usually cook them for 40 minutes regardless, because it's not like extra cooking hurts them. They are pretty resilient! And there is pretty much nothing grosser than a partially-cooked matzo ball.
I like to serve my matzo ball soup with this no-knead bread. I tend to mix the bread dough up in the morning, and let it rise for a long time, because my family likes a more sourdough flavor. (Today, for example, I mixed up the dough at 5:45 am, put it on the pan for the second rise around 1:15 pm, and then baked the bread around 2 pm.)
Here is a picture of what my bread looked like when I pulled it out of the oven after 35 minutes.
Here's a picture of the delicious inside of the bread.
I've made this bread a lot of different ways. My best tips:
Happy cooking!
Apparently one can use matzo meal to do things like bread meats or in place of flour in potato pancakes. I've only ever used it for matzo balls, though, because my family doesn't keep kosher. This means that during Passover, when Jews are not supposed to eat leavened breads or several other foods, matzo products are supposed to sub in for leavened bread products, but my family doesn't stick to that, and so you'll sometimes find us eating challah (and soy and rice and other "forbidden" foods) during the ten days of Passover. Oh well!
Matzo balls can be made in many different ways. I like mine to be slightly heavier, but I'm including a way to make them much lighter for those who prefer them fluffy.
I also have to say that the best matzo ball soup I ever had was made by an old roommate of mine who was as goyish (non-Jewish) as they come! So if you're worried that you can't make good matzo ball soup because you aren't Jewish, put that thought out of your head! I guarantee you, there is no magical Jewish matzo ball dust required for delicious soup.
Matzo Ball Soup
For the matzo balls:
1/2 cup whole grain matzo meal
1/2 cup regular matzo meal (you can use 1 cup of regular matzo meal and cut out the whole grain if you want)
1/4 cup oil (I use olive oil for a more dense matzo ball; you can use any kind of vegetable oil for a lighter matzo ball)
1/4 cup broth (For a lighter matzo ball, you can use 1/4 cup unflavored seltzer)
1/2 tsp kosher salt
4 eggs
Crack the eggs into a bowl and beat them. Add the oil, the broth/seltzer, the matzo meal, and the salt (in that order), and mix together with a fork. Cover the bowl (I usually just use a plate, but you can use plastic wrap too), and refrigerate for 30 - 45 minutes.
For the soup:
6 cups of vegetable broth
3 stalks celery, cut into half-moons
3 large or 4 medium carrots, cut into rounds
2 medium onions, roughly diced or cut into half-moons, whichever you prefer (I dice mine by splitting the onion in half, cutting each half into half, and then chopping it)
olive oil
Put the broth on the stove with the heat turned to medium-high and cover it.
In a separate pan, put all the vegetables and enough oil to coat them, and put the heat on medium. You're not frying these vegetables -- you want the onion to get a little color, but mostly you want to soften them and add flavor.
This step is also important because the oil is going to add some body to the broth. This is my trick for making the vegetable broth mimic the chicken stock my family was used to eating with matzo balls. But just putting oil into the broth tastes funny and looks weird; when the vegetables sweat into the oil, it gives a much better, deeper, richer flavor.
It will probably take about a half an hour of cooking for your vegetables to get to the right point. Don't salt them, because that will make your soup salty -- unless you like the saltiness! We tend to shy away from a lot of salt in my family, because my mother has high blood pressure.
Put the vegetables into the soup. By now, your matzo ball mix should be about ready. Bring the soup up to a boil -- the best way to do this is to cover the pot and crank the heat up to high for a couple of minutes.
The best way I've found to make the matzo balls is to use a disher. This is the style I use
although mine is 1-1/2 tablespoons. (I also use it to make perfectly-sized chocolate chip cookies! But that's another entry.) The other way to make matzo balls is to wet your hands, spoon matzo ball mix into your wet hands, and make the spoonful into a ball. I find this messy and annoying. My grandma just spoons it up and dumps it in, so if you don't care if your matzo balls are actually round, just do that!Once the soup is boiling, use your preferred method to put the matzo balls into the soup. (That link is a picture.) If using the disher, I suggest swishing the disher in the boiling soup between balls, to make it easier to get the matzo ball mix out of the disher without extra pieces floating in the soup.
Then cover the soup, and turn the heat down to low.
The matzo balls need to cook for 30 - 40 minutes depending on their size... I usually cook them for 40 minutes regardless, because it's not like extra cooking hurts them. They are pretty resilient! And there is pretty much nothing grosser than a partially-cooked matzo ball.
I like to serve my matzo ball soup with this no-knead bread. I tend to mix the bread dough up in the morning, and let it rise for a long time, because my family likes a more sourdough flavor. (Today, for example, I mixed up the dough at 5:45 am, put it on the pan for the second rise around 1:15 pm, and then baked the bread around 2 pm.)
Here is a picture of what my bread looked like when I pulled it out of the oven after 35 minutes.
Here's a picture of the delicious inside of the bread.
I've made this bread a lot of different ways. My best tips:
- Use 7 cups of flour instead of 6-1/2 if you live in a damp environment (which I do)
- Don't sub in more than 3 cups of whole wheat flour
- Always use kosher or otherwise coarse salt; if using regular table salt, cut the amount of salt in half
- Instead of using a knife to slash the loaf, use a scissor to snip it. I don't form the dough into separate loaves, but instead usually leave all the dough in one lump. Then I cut 4 - 5 Xs with my kitchen shears. I have found this works much better than slashing with a knife, and lets my dough rise and bake higher.
- Let the bread rise its full amount the second time. The recipe says you can put it in the oven after 20 minutes, but I do not recommend that; the loaf baked up pretty flat when I did that.
- Use 2 cups of water in a pan on the bottom of the oven -- if you only use one, and your bread needs more than 30 minutes, you'll run out of water before the bread is finished cooking.
Happy cooking!