We are gonna make matzah ball...
matzah ball soup.
Have I ever made it before?
No!
No, I haven't.
But, I love eating matzah ball soup.
I love chicken soup, and matzah ball soup is just
chicken soup with a giant matzah ball.
Take a bite of the matzah ball,
sip of the soup, matzah ball,
sip of the soup.
First thing we gotta do is we're gonna separate
our egg yolks and our egg whites...
to make our matz-- Oh!
Watch out.
We're gonna separate six eggs.
You take the egg whites, you whip those to soft peaks.
What's a soft peak?
It's a peak of softness.
It's when you beat your egg whites 'til...
it's soft... erect, flaccid.
Stiff peaks, soft peaks.
Is that how you whisk?
Can you show me how you whisk to get stiff peaks?
I want to see.
Well, you're basically there.
You did it.
You do it.
- You need soft peaks.
- Soft peaks.
Look.
Oh...
Our food stylist, if she could just eat matzah balls
all day long, she would.
When was the first time you ever made matzah balls?
Oh, I was like, like on a stool in my bubbe's house,
like, when I was like four years old.
There's no way of like looking cool when
you're making stiff peaks, is there?
No.
That's good.
- Okay, so that's good?
- Yeah.
Thanks, Michelle.
See, this is soft peaks; that's all you want.
Now, we got our egg yolks.
We are gonna add three tablespoons of chicken schmaltz.
Take chicken skin, render it out in a pan,
strain it off, you got chicken schmaltz.
That shit is crackin'.
So now we're just gonna incorporate
our chicken schmaltz, and smell that.
Now we're gonna fold in our soft peaks.
You want your matzah ball batter to be light
'cause you want them to be floaty, don't you.
I don't like dense matzah balls.
They're called sinkers.
Sinkers embarrass the family,
and if you embarrass the family,
you gotta, you gotta skip town.
We're gonna add one cup of matzah meal and
we're gonna take our baking soda,
just a tablespoon.
So Jewish people, during Passover, make matzah.
So matzah is the bread that they eat,
and you just crumble it into a dust, and
then from there you can make your matzah ball soup.
Now we're just gonna add a quarter cup of seltzer water.
The seltzer water actually makes it a lighter ball.
If you were to use just regular tap water
it would make them more dense.
One final pass.
We're gonna add our matzah ball.
Look at that.
Beautiful.
And then, we're gonna let this set up for 30 minutes
in the fridge, and then we're gonna be able to
form our matzah balls out of
our beautiful matzah ball batter.
I am gonna make chicken soup now.
In my chicken soup, things can be a little chunky.
We're gonna add two tablespoons of chicken schmaltz.
We're gonna add our one large diced onion.
Beautiful.
We're gonna take one stalk of celery and
we're just gonna cut quarter-inch chunks of celery.
Peel three carrots.
I'm just gonna cut these in little rounds
'cause these carrots are little small guys.
We're gonna add our carrots.
This is our base and we're gonna cook this
until it's just translucent.
And then we're gonna add our two quarts of chicken stock.
Agh!
Mm, oh my God.
We got matzah balls.
So after 30 minutes it tightens up, doesn't it?
The thing about the matzah ball
is you can make it any size you want.
I like matzah balls like that big.
I don't like matzah ball soups with just like
one giant matzah ball in the middle.
♪ Matzah ball soup is so fucking good!
♪
We have a boiling pot of chicken soup.
I'm gonna drop in one matzah ball at a time.
We're gonna bring that up to a boil,
turn it down to a simmer.
What are these fucking matzah balls doing?!
These aren't sinkers.
I wouldn't give you sinkers.
I wouldn't show you how to make sinkers.
We are gonna simmer.
Look at this.
As soon as that ball floats, about five minutes,
and you're perfect.
That ball's cooked perfectly.
So, take a slotted spoon.
I'm gonna take my matzah ball.
So I'm gonna take our three matzah balls,
ladle our chicken soup.
This is the first time I have ever made matzah ball
in my life and it came out perfect.
Because once again, Michelle,
she is an encyclopedia of matzah.
Look at this.
Whoa.
See that steam going by my face?
Are you crazy?