Matza Balls!

One of my favorite favorite favorite Passover foods has got to be Matza Balls. I was actually thinking the other day, how do we eat soup the other 357 days of the year without Matza Balls? They are a delicious and special addition to any dinner, and sometimes I like to make them randomly throughout the year.

There are a million and four different ways to make matza balls, and everyone and their grandmother has their own twist on this traditional dish. Even with all of the different ways to prepare matza balls, they generally fall into two distinctive camps: hard vs. soft. I am a strong advocate for hard matza balls. I feel like you need to work to get to that delicious ball of goodness, therefore your spoon must strain to break it open. The fear that the hard matza ball might actually bounce out of the soup bowl is part of my recipe.
Here is my recipe for amazingly delicious(and hard) Matza Balls.

Ingredients
 
1 cup and 1 tbsp of matza meal or ground up matza(you get a finer texture if you buy pre-ground matza meal-you can also use whole wheat or white matza)
1 cup of club soda
2 eggs, beaten
1 tbsp of vegetable/canola oil
approximately 1 teaspoon of freshly ground ginger
salt and black pepper to taste

Instructions

- In a bowl, combing the matza meal, eggs, oil and club soda, mix well
- Add the ginger, salt and pepper, combine until it is a stiff wet paste like texture. If it is too wet or dry balance out with matza meal and club soda until you get the desired consistency
- Cover bowl and let the mixture sit in the fridge for at least 1/2 an hour
- Boil soup or cooking liquid, just remember that these absorb lots of liquid so make sure you have enough. I reccommend using a a pot that has a very large opening so as to have as much surface area for the matza balls to float while they are cooking
- Take the mixture out of the fridge and set up a plate or piece of parchment paper. Wetting your hands with water every few balls, roll out ping-pong sized balls from the mixture and place them on the plate. Make sure that they are all approximately the same size, so that they will cook evenly
- Bring the cooking liquid down to a simmer and gently add the matza balls to it, making sure not to splash
-Let the matza balls simmer in the liquid for 1/2 an hour, turning them around a little bit in the middle of the process so the tops don't dry out
- Serve matza balls in any kind of soup, but the traditional way would be in chicken broth or vegetable broth
-For storage, make sure you take the matza balls out of the soup so that they don't absorb too much liquid and get soggy

Enjoy!

It's Almost Passover!

Passover, or Pesach as it is called in Hebrew is almost upon us! This is the Jewish holiday that celebrates the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt into the land of Israel, of course led by our guy Moses. As is the case with most Jewish holidays, Pesach follows the pattern of 'They tried to kill us, now we eat'.

Many Jewish holidays surround specific foods, and Pesach is no exception. The dietary rules for this holiday are pretty strict, however they vary depending on your family traditions. Ashkenazi Jews which can trace their family trees to Eastern Europe do not eat anything that rises, so this means any kind of bread, pasta, crackers, anything containing yeast or flour. They also do not eat legumes such as beans or rice. Sephardic Jews however, do eat rice and beans as these were such staples of their diets in Southern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.

My roots are in Eastern Europe, however I sometimes fancy myself a Sephardic Jew when I just can't eat another piece of matza lasgna!

What you can expect from Let It Marinate in the next few days are recipes for Pesach. Traditions that my family has been making year after year, the most famous being my amazing matza balls!