Chicken Soup with Matzah Balls

Submitted by Max Weiman

Ingredients:

Take a normal metal pot, (not some strange cast iron thing or other invention), that holds at least 6 quarts and fill it half way with water, or up to about 3 quarts if the pot is larger.

Add these spices first before you heat up the water. Otherwise there’s steam coming up into your hands and spice jars.

A pinch of pepper

A tablespoon of salt (maybe a little more even)

¼ of a teaspoon of turmeric (This spice gives the soup a very nice yellowish color that adds to the beauty of the soup, and the flavor is nice too.)

1 medium sized garlic clove, just peeled, not sliced

½ of a teaspoon of dried dill

1 large onion (about the size of an average fist), just peeled and chop off a thin slice off each end. Do not cut up the onion!

1 average sized sweet potato, peeled and cut into large slices, like an inch thick You can add another sweet potato but more than two and it starts to be a different kind of soup.

3 medium sized stalks of celery, cut into about inch or ½ inch long pieces

3 medium sized carrots peeled and sliced into about ½ inch long pieces

1 large chicken breast with ribs, with the skin on

Directions:

1. Boil for one hour on high, and then lower heat so it is still at a low boil on medium or a little lower but not low for two hours. If you put all this together and only boil it for a half hour, don’t mention my name in connection with your soup.

2. Everyone’s stove works differently; you need the soup to cook but not boil away. Make sure the level of soup does not go down more than an inch or two at the most.

3. Matzah balls. Get yourself a mix like Manischewitz. Not the “soup and matzah ball” mix, just the matzah ball mix. Do not boil the matzah balls in water like the directions say, unless you want the matzah balls to have no flavor. After the soup is finished, get the soup up to a high boil again, and put the matzah balls into the boiling soup.  This does take away a bit of the soup that the balls absorb, so you have to have the measurements right or you’ll be left without one bowl for someone.

Some people like a matzah ball, some people like nothin’ at all. Some people like noodles, others like Osem soup “croutons.” That’s up to you.