Mom's Chicken Soup Recipe
Ingredients: *(size)*
Chicken - 2 Quarters [1 quarter = thigh and drumstick]
Alternatively - 1 quarter and 1 bone in breast with the wing
Vegetables -
1 (L) Onion [alternatively 2 medium] - medium Dice
3 cloves of Garlic
3-4 Celery Stalks, 1 inch pieces
4 (M) Carrots, peeled, 2 inch pieces
3 Roma/Plum Tomatoes, cut in half (or 1 beefsteak, quartered)
2 (M) Potatoes, cut in half, then cut each half to 3 [keep these in a bowl with water so they don't oxidize)
2 (L) Zucchinis, cut them to large 2-3 inch chunks *optional
1/2 cup Parsley, do not chop, just wash and dry
Spices -
1.5 tsp ground Black Pepper
2 tsp Sweet Paprika
2 tsp Garlic Powder
1 Tbsp Chicken Consume
Salt to taste
Jaime Geller's Matzo Ball Recipe:
Start by making your matzo balls, they need to sit for 30 minutes and up to 2 hours.
Mom always uses the mix, but that's too easy right? I personally used the amazing Jaime Geller's matzo ball recipe (recipe link above) but if you have a recipe you'd like to use, or if you want to make the mix, by all means!
Once your matzo ball mix is in the fridge resting, start the soup:
-Fill a 3 qt pot with water and bring it to a boil, the soup will lose water and we want to always add hot water, never cold. If you have a kettle, use that (much faster)
-Fill a large stock pot with 5 quarts of water, start heating it up
-Right before you reach a boiling point, place your chicken in the water, this will seal the chicken and give you an opportunity to skim the fats and foam [the impurities] that the chicken releases in the water
-Start skimming by running a spoon along the top of the water and remove as much of the impurities as possible
-Once you skimmed as much as you can and the water is at a rolling boil, refill the pot with the hot water you have ready, we want to get back to 5 quarts of total water
The next act is the Vegetables, this is calculated because different veggies cook at different times
-With the water boiling, add the tomatoes, carrots, onions, garlic, and celery
-Bring it back to a boil, reduce your heat, you want bubbling but you don't want an aggressive boil (you want it to be burbling), and cover it
-Let these veggies cook for 30 minutes covered and burbling
-After 30 minutes, drain your potatoes that were soaking in the bowl of cold water (so they don't oxidize), and prepare your spices
-Carefully add the potatoes and spices to the soup, give everything a good mix, and bring it back to a boil
-Cover the pot and let cook for an additional 30 minutes
-While the potatoes cook, grab your matzo ball mix, it should be hydrated and ready to form
-Form your matzo balls and place them on a lined cookie sheet, put them back in the fridge
-Prepare the zucchini and the parsley, have them handy
-After 30 minutes, add the zucchini and parsley
Now this part is a bit controversial, the proper way to cook matzo balls is in a pot of salt water (like pasta) separately from the soup itself, BUTTTT my mom always cooks them in the soup, so that's how we gonna do that.
At any point, if you feel like you are losing water, grab the hot water you have prepared, and add that, NEVER ADD COLD WATER TO THE SOUP, PLEASE!
-Bring everything back to a rolling boil, and carefully drop the matzo balls into the soup, keep it at a rolling boil while the matzo balls cook.
-Once the matzo balls a done, the soup is ready, most likely an additional 45 min - 1 hour
THIS SOUP is hard to overcook, so just keep it on a low fire until you are ready to eat
That's it!
ENJOY!!
chef-ish?