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When we discuss matzo balls, we use the terms sinkers and floaters. In our house, we're divided, so pleasing everyone is difficult. To make sinkers, I use 1/2 matzo meal and 1/2 matzo farfel and let the mix chill for at least 1/2 an hour.

Happy holidays all.

Kathy
ps. love your show.

A Gentile's Great Matzoh Balls

No need for a recipe. I'm listening to everyone else. General ingredients in mine include what everyone else has, a very light grating of onion, separating the yolks and whites of the eggs, using seltzer. Result: fluffies. MB's get cooked in salted water. Stock is homemade.

I'll try the ginger. My background is Saxon and Hungarian, so I know whereof Ms. Nathan speaks with the nutmeg -- ALWAYS in chicken soup. I'm wondering if she makes chicken liver dumplings for soup as well. My dad used to make them, but I haven't made them in a long time.
Mimi Brauch

Firm.

A seder is not a dinner party. You were expecting maybe to ENJOY the food? Feh!

Well, all right....do it your way...make the matzo balls fluffy. Turn your back on fifty years of family tradition. See if I care. I only want you should be happy.

A Family Matzo Ball Story

(Too) Soon after I met my husband-to-be, I invited him to my family seder. He was
not a notably polite man. After the soup with matzo ball was served, my mother
waited vainly for a compliment, and finally couldn't stop herself from asking:
So what did you think of my matzo balls, aren't they wonderfully light and fluffy?
He said yes they were, but that he preferred the matzo balls of his youth, which
his mother made, he said, very dense and heavy, like hockey pucks.

Fast forward several years: My mother-in-law was visiting from Phoenix during Passover,
and I was making the seder. She said nothing after tasting her soup and matzo ball,
and I couldn't stop myself from asking: So what do you think of my matzo balls,
aren't they nicely heavy and dense like you always made? "What do you
mean, heavy?" she said, "Mine were fluffy and light like feathers."

Does every family have this story?

Happy Passover,

Barbara

Floaters, sinkers. April 1st; baseball, shmaseball, what is worse?
All this talk about knaidlach (matzo balls) and hard balls and soft pitches; it can confuse a girl who grew up hearing grandfather talk about Micky Mendl.

My family had an alternative sometimes served with the knaidlach, sometimes offered up on even the first night alone mitout the knaidlach or on the second night again mit or mitout. (Yes, the mits/mitts might matter, both in the stadium and in steaming bowls of chicken soup). So should the mighty knaidlach have center bowl stage when there is a delectable alternative? Because, in my family,we have one: a light Pesadich latke. Latke? Passover, vos is de mir mit de (what's the matter with you?)Isn't it enough to worry about latkes when the days are short and darkness comes early or even during Purim when the great latkes v. hamantashen debates take flight and reminders of Passover just ahead loom letting us consider that Esther Malke of beloved memory has some work to do after survival. Afterall, there is a palace to be cleaned and the right foods obtained, prepared and served.
So, we're talking about a super light latke, made with beaten egg whites and matzo meal. A latke that gently floats for the moment and then touches bottom. Joined possibly with some farfel. Or a neighboring knaidl. And the knaidl, a sinker made of the same stuff as in my Mom's incredible stuffing, just rounded and not shoved into a helzel (chicken neck) or the cavity of some poultry/fowl,and not soaked through with the juices of said birds but still artery clogging what with the eggs). Which brings me to the fresh eggies we got from the chicken market (which my mother did buy but maybe not for two zuzim). No seltzer or club soda for that matter in the knaidlach - that's for drinking and moving a piece of stuck knaidl down the pipe.
And oh, you've got to be careful when you use your spoon to break into the wall of the knaidl because if you are not careful, the knaidl will move, displacing some soup, but worse it could fly out of the soup bowl (my favorite Blue Willow pattern special magical Passover china, only one of its kind in my childhood household) and then we will have to worry about where it will land and whether it was it a fly-ball, a high pop-up past Elijah's cup, whether it will make to the Charoses or stop short of the lit candles. Let alone land in the wine, and should that be Shapiro's, Concord or Malaga or oy, Manischewitz? And will the wine stains come out? Not to worry, we have a lovely plastic table cloth to go over and linen/cotton whatever it was that bore the history of seders past. And a Happy and zis Pesach (sweet Passover) to all and to all a good night! Oh, yes, I need to get the recipe......

Since I felt incapable of deciding most of the enigmas of modern an I decided to resolve the matzo ball enigma.

I first used the recipe on the box, allowing the "mix" to "rest" in the fridge for a few hours - excellent results!

Next I added 1/2 a teaspoon of baking soda to the mix - airy, almost too light!

Lastly I separated the eggs and beat the whites to soft peaks - carefully folded the batter with the beaten egg whites - ethereal!

However, the addition of diced fresh dill and parsley made the biggest impression ...

The real question: what do you do with two dozen matzo balls of varying degrees of "Airyness ..."?

A highly rated recipe for *vegan* (and thus, cholesterol-free) matzoh ball soup is posted at Isa Chandra Moskowitz's fabulous Post Punk Kitchen website:

http://www.theppk.com/recipes/dbrecipes/index.php?RecipeID=147

Proof that you can have delicious matzoh ball soup without the eggs, chicken fat, etc.... (Isa's recipe uses silken tofu & homemade veggie stock, to give a sense of how it's made--specifics can be found on her site.)

A great revelation made fact:

One year I was making matzoh balls with my usual recipe (medium-plutonium sinker weight).
As I was rolling one I held it up and realized it was a sphere . . . a geometric shape.

I found that using a dense recipe, you can mold pyramids (memories of Egypt?) and cubes.

If you indent the flat surfaces, they expand out slightly to become straight sides on the pyramids and cubes.

Needless to say, don't show them to anyone until they are brought out to the seder table.

Try it, you will find it is a classic eye-brow raiser.

I may be attempting an even more sculptural approach this year. Any suggestions for shapes that will cook up without falling apart? (Gingerbread men need not apply.)

I offer listeners just a few of the many recipes that also celebrate how to prepare Sephardi and Mizrahi foods for Pesach, since Matzo Ball soup is, predominantly, an Ashkenazi Jewish cuisine.

There are a handful of great books and recipes including:

A Fistful of Lentils, http://fistfuloflentils.com

or websites that offer recipe on how to make:

Date Charoset,
http://www.recipeland.com/s/sephardic-style_date_haroset.html

To (if it must be matzo ball recipes), a Moroccan Style Matzo Ball Soup:
http://vegkitchen.com/recipes/sephardic-style-passover.htm#2

or roasted pepper salad.

While loving that the Lopate show will be celebrating Jewish life and Jewish cuisine, I also hope it will do that by honoring our breadth, depth and diversity within Jewish life.

Yours
Cole
Editor, JVoices.com
http://www.jvoices.com

Last weekend I took my video camera and filmed a real bubby making her prized matzah ball soup... medium sinkers. Delicious... easy to replicate as you'll see in the video recipe (link is below).

So many of these old country recipes will disappear as these great people pass away. It's important that these recipes survive!

Click here to watch:
http://realmeals.tv/lent.aspx?bcpid=538640727&bclid=713073305&bctid=713318296

PS. She also demonstrates gefilte fish... the mystery is finally revealed! Her potato kugel rocks too.

This recipe comes from my grandmother, Bessie Bender, originally a resident of Bialystock until she moved to New Haven about 98 years ago. She's been gone 36 years, and I got this recipe from my mom, who's now about 95 and well (thanks for asking).

The short answer is fluffy. That's where the art is. Heavy, anybody can make. The metaphor for her knaidlach is a cloud.

I added a touch about 25 years ago with the parsley.

If you don't have schmaltz handy (Empire makes it and you can find it in the frozen section of your supermarket), dice and caramelize a half medium onion in 2 T. oil, then chop the onions fine and use them w/ the oil.

Enjoy.

Jonathan Meyer

Knaidlach: to make 10

6 jumbo eggs, separated (if large, use 7)
1 cup matzah meal
2 tablespoons rendered chicken fat (schmaltz)
1 teaspoon kosher salt (if using table salt, use 3/4 tsp.)
2 T. chopped parsley
pinch of pepper

Beat whites.
Beat yolks.
Add schmaltz, salt, pepper, parsley to yolks.
Gently fold matzah meal into whites, then yolks. Do not overmix.
Refrigerate 1/2 hour.
Form into 10 balls.
Add to boiling salted water, turn down to simmer, cover, and simmer 1/2 hour. Then, turn off fire and don’t uncover for 1 hour after cooking. If necessary, you can uncover after a half hour, but you'd be pushing it.
Store in bowl. Heat in soup.
Serve in the soup with a couple of slices of carrot from the soup and a sprig of dill.

Make enough for about a quarter of your guests to have seconds. The next time you serve it, make enough for about half of your guests to have seconds.

For many years my mother and her sisters spent a considerable time and effort collecting and testing matzo ball recipes. In the end, the recipe on the side of the box was judged to be the best, i.e. light and fluffy.

While my brother and I will eat and make complimentary remarks about those matzo balls, we both firmly believe that "real" matzo balls should be rubbery on the inside and falling apart on the outside. Those were the type of matzo balls we ate before our mother and aunts began their quest for the perfect matzo ball and those are the type we still want. It's not just food. It's also an aerobic workout.

My mom was a very good matzoh ball cook. She was fastidious, cooking them firm the way my dad liked them. Even after he died, she continued to cook them that way. (I prefer them fluffy).
When I moved to NY in 1978 to join an all-female Latin band called Latin Fever, I left my dog, Giovanni, a shepherd-husky mix, with my mom. One day she called me up long distance, from Newton (suburb of Boston) where we lived, howling with laughter. "I just wanted to tell you what your dog did!" And proceeded to describe how, after spending all this time cooking the matzoh balls, she had spread them out to cool on the counter...and he had risen to the occasion and rapidly eaten every last one.
What was so mystifying about the story was, how could she laugh? She was a very serious person, often cranky, not given over to easy laughter.
I'll never know the answer. Something about the whole scene just tickled her I guess!

I make the Matzo balls my mother made. She died at 93 in 1990. They are of the heavy variety and over the last fifty years or so, my family has learned to like them because, for our Passover seder, they are the tradition. The rest of the year, my grandsons, aged 14, 13, and six may eat the fluffy ones. We are usually between 22 to 25 people. The core, 19 of us, is made up of my husband who conducts the Seder, a niece, our 2 daughters and their husbands, the 3 grandsons, one daughter's mother-in-law, my son-in--law's brother, his wife and their 2 children, also that daughter's oldest and best friend, her husband and 2 daughters. There are also assorted friends with or without children, with or without attachments. This year, I am told, to cook for 25. The Seder is actually held at the home of the daughter with the 3 grandsons. The meal is traditional: gefillte fish, hard boiled eggs, leg of lamb, veal brisket, salmon for the vegetarians, assorted side dishes, and, of course, wine and dessert.
Here's the recipe:
One box of matzo loosely broken up in a large bowl
4 to 6 eggs
a tablespoon of oil [rendered chicken fat instead, if no one is worried about cholesterol]
1/2 flat teaspoon of sugar
salt, if the matzos are the salt free variety
matzo meal, if needed the next day to firm up the dough [I'll explain at the end of the recipe]
water to cover the matzos

Break up the matzos [this can be done in the large bowl, with the heel of the hand, be careful as dry matzos can be quite sharp]
Barely cover with water, and let stand a while for the matzos to absorb it and become soft,
Squeeze the softened matzos with your hands, the water should have been absorbed, drain if there is too much water
Break up the eggs and beat them to mix the yokes and the whites
If you have added too much water, squeeze it out, before adding the eggs
Add sugar, salt and oil
Mix it all up with a fork to begin with, and then with your clean hands. Be sure the softened matzos and the eggs form a nice dough with no large pieces of matzos visible
Place covered, in the refrigerator over night.
The next day, boil some water. When really bubbling, make a small ball from your dough. Drop it into the boiling water for about 5 minutes. If it holds its shape. You are done. If it fall apart, add a little matzo meal to your mixture. Repeat with small matzo ball in boiling water, until you have added enough so that the balls keep their shape and do not fall apart. Put back in refrigerator,
Before the Seder begins boil a large quantity of water [to which you may add some salt if the trial balls seemed too bland] Into the boiling water put matzo balls the size of the circle you make with your thumb and forefinger, as they will get bigger as they heat up. You may make larger ones, but they may take longer. Two or three per person with enough left over for seconds. Boil gently 20 to 30 minutes. If you tested well, they will not fall apart. Keep some matzo meal on hand just in case. They will rise to the surface, so be sure you have a large enough pot of water. Taste one to be sure it is cooked through. Remove balls from boiling water to a bowl. In the meantime, heat your soup. Time it all according to the Seder service. When the soup is about ready, put in the number of balls you think you will need. Let it all heat up together. You can always tell people used to the fluffy ones, that these are really more like dumplings, real German, heavy, delicious, dumplings.
Eveline

Over the years I have tossed out many from scratch matzoh balls for their lead like taste and feel. After much trial and error I discovered the mix and always get compliments from the crew.

The only recipe my mother (sadly) ever shared with me was for her chicken soup. Before my first seder, she came over and directed the process from shopping to the finished product. She insisted we use a poulet and tons of fresh vegetables and herbs. Of course, the preparation is done in advance and refrigerated so fat can be skimmed off the top the next day.

I usually start warming the soup early on the day of the seder on a very low flame and add the Matzoh balls about 2 hours before the meal so they are heated through and get the flavor of the delicious soup.

This mix of great soup and from the mix matzoh balls has been a great success.

Loaded Matzoh Balls

My grandmother, Rose Steinberg, is the only person I know of who made 'loaded matzoh balls'. They had chopped liver inside them. I make them occasionally for my family. You work with chopped liver already made, roll small balls. Make a thick pancake of the matzohball mix about the size of your palm (in your wet palm), place one liver ball in the middle, and work the pancake up around the liver. Encircle completely. Drop into the boiling water as you would any matzoh ball, then when they are puffed and full, transfer into soup.

I generally make a few matzoh balls WITHOUT the liver, but when offered "loaded or empty" everyone prefers the loaded ones.

I follow the recipe on the box of matzoh meal- and the matzoh balls come out fluffy.
BUT
My mother says that a matzoh ball should be like a lead sinker and shoot off your soup plate if you try to cut it. That's the way her mother made them!

My family belong to the "light as air" matzoh ball faction. I've been doing the Passover seder for close to 30 years since my mother retired and became a snow bird. It took me about half of that time to come up with my own "secret" ingredient which I happily share. I make the chicken soup at least a day ahead and when it is cold and jelled, I skim the fat off the top and this is what I use to make the matzoh balls, which then have all of the flavor of the soup. I make the matzoh balls with four eggs, 1/3 cup of schmaltz, 1/2 cup of seltzer water, 1 cup of matzoh meal and salt and pepper to taste.
Louise Yohalem
Mill River, MA

My father did all the cooking in our household, but when we ate matzo balls it was either at one of the grandmother's houses, or at a restaurant. One grandmother was a "fluffy," having used beaten egg whites in the mix; I didn't like them, but her chicken soup was superlative. The other grandma never divulged recipes. I--who have been cooking since the age of 8 (am now 74) and who is the collector of over 1200 cookbooks--have found that no recipe really beats the one on the side of the Manishewitz box. These are neither sinkers nor fluff balls but, as said by baby bear, "just right." I feel the necessity to use the schmalz--adds that mysterious essence (wouldn't hurt you just this once!), and I sometimes mix in a tiny bit of minced parsley for color. My main thing about them is that they should be cooked in salted water, not in the soup. They will cloud the soup, which should be crystal clear. A wide, rather than deep pot should be used. Now, regarding the soup, mine is a lot like my grandmother's. She made the soup twice, of course using chicken feet in the first. Then, the real soup (2nd soup chicken) was cooked in the first's broth. I have found that starting with a good, organic chicken broth and possibly an small addition of a quality chicken soup base or a chicken bouillon cube will suffice. I add lots of dill and the usual veggies as my grandmother did. Constant skimming is necessary. The soup should then be strained and the old trick of boiling a few egg shells in the broth adds even more clarity to the clarity. Now, the soup can be served in all its crystalline brilliance with the matzo balls, a few sprigs of fresh dill and some slices of carrot that has been cooked just for this purpose. Nothing better!
Leslie Wile

When I was a child, the chicken soup with k'naidlach always seemed to taste better than anything we had ever eaten - maybe because we were so hungry by the time the soup was served! My father always showered lavish praise on my mother's "puchky knaidlach" - fluffy matzah balls - and the puchkier the better. (Puchky is Yiddish, from the German word for down, as in feathers. Knaidlach is the plural form of knaidle, the Yiddish word for dumpling.) The lightier and airier, the better. My mother was especially known for her light, puchky k'naidlah. Those two words evoked such delicious perfection that they became idiomatic in our family for soft, smooth, juicy and tender, and were even used by my father in a loving - yet playful - way towards my sisters and me.

We never, EVER, used the phrase "matzah balls!" They were k'naidlach and always will be. Puchky, I hope.

I weigh in on the light side of the matzo ball debate. But I wish you had broadcast this before Passover since the day of Passover is no time to listen to new recipes. Charoses has to be made, the table set, the plate assembled.

Response from the Lopate Show:
***Hi Judith, thanks for your comment. We're posting all of these recipes here as they're submitted, in the hopes that listeners will have time to check out the recipes & comments posted. So even though we're not discussing the submission on-air until April 2, listeners can still get tips and recipes from each other ahead of time.

If I could only eat one thing during Passover, it would be matzoh balls. The rest is kind of boring.

I hope my entry inspires someone who is afraid of what is the easiest thing in the world to make.

I learned from the Manischevitz box. So did my mother. We didn't come from a long line of matzoh ball - makers. I actually taught my mother.

Over the years, I've discovered, of course, that there are two groups -- the ones who like the sinkers (not I) and the ones who like the floaters -- airy, soft and delectable.

I started reading various m.b. recipes and decided to make some minor adjustments on the Manischevitz recipe. It was amazing. All I changed was leaving them in the refrigerator for an hour -- not for 20 mins. The other difference was using seltzer, not water, or broth.

The texture of these come out somewhere in between soft and hard so everyone is happy - at least I am - I love them.

I've always wanted to put "green things" into them but with kids, nieces etc, you can't take the "green risk." So even though my son is now 25, I still avoid the "green things" because he really loves m.b. and I wouldn't want to discourage him by adding "green things" to the batter.

Carol Fass

I am not Jewish- but my husband is- and for 30 some years, I have been making Craig Claiborne's recipe for matzoh balls from the New York Times Cookbook- they always turn out light and fluffy- I do cook them in a nice chicken soup-

So its a Shiksa cooking a recipe from a southern
gentleman-

Love Leonard Lopate's show-

Audrey Code, Soho

I always believed good matzoh balls needed to use "schmaltz" (chicken fat). However, I've decided our arteries are more important that matzoh balls.

I've begun using vegetable or corn oil as the fat and find they taste just as soon. I also buy Streit's Matzoh Meal and somehow believe that makes a difference. Is that possible? Friends have told me matzoh meals doesn't age well and buy new regularly. It seems to work!!!

Happy Holidays,

Jo-Ann

I was invited to my first Seder 21 years ago by my future wife. The dinner was held at her grandmother's house in Queens. Being a good Italian, I knew that the way to a grandmother's heart is through your stomach -- my own grandmother was never happier than when I reached for that third helping of lasagna (knowing full well that we were barely half way through the meal). Nan's matzo balls, like my grandmother's meatballs, were light and fluffy and melted in your mouth.

Three helpings later I knew I had won her over.

Today, she is 95, in a nursing home suffering from late stage Alzheimer's. I try to visit as often as I can, and although she does not always remember my name, she does always remember one thing, and reminds me of it when I see her:

"You always liked my motzo balls."

FLUFFY. My mother's were always 'perfect' and I inherited the gene, or in this instance, for once, listened to my mother.
I make the recipe on the Manischevitz box.
Her theory was that after you drop the balls in the boiling water, simmer them for 30-40 minutes and NEVER lift the lid. G-d forbid you lift the lid, they're chewy.

I have been to and have made many dedars in my lifetime. The Passovers that I remember as a child growing up in Brooklyn are still very vivid in my mind. We always changed our dishes for Passover and I remember that my parents always invited so mahy people to both sedar nights that we did not have enough glasses and silverware for everyone. We went down to the lower level of our house that we used as an entertainment area, where we had a kitchen so that she was able to boil water in a large pot on the stove. We then heated a large stone and threw it in the water. It really sizzeled then we did that. We then tied the silverware, one by one on to a cord and dunked it in the water. That made it passadic. We soaked the glasses for a few days before Passover. Surprislying, we had enough china to go around.

When I took over the sedar tradition from my mother, I notices something very funny when we were eating the chicken soup with matzah balls. I stopped everyone around the table and told them to watch each other as they ate the matzah balls. My family cut them up as they ate them and my sister's family cut them up first. Nobody realized that they were doing this. We all had a good laugh and still talk about it after all these years.

Now I let the younger generation continue the tradition and make their own memories.

Judy Lewis

My matzoballs are from my great-great grandmothers house and no-one in the fanily would dare to make other ones. Take 1 tablespoon of oil and one egg,(makes about 8 little ones and multiply ingredients for more), add a little salt and chopped parsley. Add matxo meal as much as it takes to make pingpong sized balls. Cook in chicken soup for 20 minutes for floaters, a little shorter for sinkers and enjoy.

I am Jewish and my mother in law, now deceased, was Italian Catholic. She gave me a copy of Joan Nathan's Jewish Holiday Cookbook one year (I think it was for xmas!) which was ironic but loving. She also made me a Seder Plate. I use them faithfully and think of her.

My Matzoh Balls:

1. Fill 3/4 of a 3 quart pot with chicken broth, (any organic brand is fine) and place pot on the stove on medium heat.
2. In a bowl, beat 2 eggs and 2 tablespoons of olive oil, adding a pinch of grated fresh nutmeg, pepper, and 1 tablespoon of fresh, finely chopped parsley.
3. Add a packet of Manischewitz Matzo Ball Mix, 2 tablespoons of water and 1 teaspoon of grated pistachios.
3. Mix well.
4. Place bowl in the freezer for 10 minutes.
5. When broth is boiling turn the heat down to simmer. Remove bowl from the freezeer.
6. Start shaping balls with a teaspoon (1.5 inches in diameter, aprox.) and drop them into the chicken broth.
7. Still on simmer, boil balls for 20 minutes and serve. Garnish with fresh parsley.

Please see Amazon Books for Yetta's Old Country
Family Favorites for the best Matzoh Ball recipe ever from the Jewish ladies in Oklahoma. These are firm, delicious, and made the old fashioned way.

Can anyone tell me how to control whether you're making light or heavy matzo balls? I use the recipe on the box, reproduced by someone else here, and they come out great, fluffy but not too fluffy, and we're all happy. But my dad always liked them heavy, and I have never been able to figure out what makes them turn out one way or the other. One aunt told me they're fluffy if you start with cold schmaltz, which I usually do. But I tried one year with oil, and they came out the same. I've heard other theories. Any suggestions?

Like my mother (and now my daughter) I have always used the recipe on the Horowitz-Margareten box, BUT - always substitute seltzer for the water and for the twice a year treat, I use chicken fat! Nothing better!

Over the cholesterol-free/vegetarian years I made 3 kinds: the two above with egg beaters or whites and cooked in vegetable broth.

After two -three years of torturing myself and remembering which pot had what, I went back to the recipe above and everyone is happy. I serve it with a side of Lipitor!

My attempts at matzo balls using mix are to light and fluffy for my husband that loves sinkers. I've tried to make them quickly, so they will not puff up in the soup, but the are still as perfectly light and airy as every other member of the family likes.

Am I missing schmaltz?

Please help!

If I'm making simple matza balls, I use a mix but I finely chop fresh dill and add it to the eggs used for the matza balls. A little fresh cracked black pepper is also pretty good.

When I want to get complex, I make "Meat Stuffed Matza Balls." A day before I make the matza balls, I sautee some ground beef, ground veal, onions, and sometimes mushrooms. Once all the meat is cooked, let it cool and then add in some fresh minced parsley. Make the balls mix by the method described in the first paragraph. When the mixture is set, roll the matza balls and then push into the center with your thumb. Take a pinch of the ground meat and put it into the depression. Seal the ball and roll again. The key to the whole process is wet hands. Keep a bowl of water nearby.

People will travel great distances for these meat stuffed matza balls!

***To see a step-by-step demonstration of these stuffed matzo balls, go to:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mennu/sets/72157600042658798/detail/

Fluffy or firm? Is light a particle or a wave? It all depends on your point of view, of course. But I have a recipe to beat all recipes...My Mother, G-d rest her soul, will come down to agree with you, what her pootzi-noo-noo makes...It all started because I lived on my own for 10 years through school and found a way to make a use for anything left in the kitchen. So one Pesach, about 10 years ago, after my wife, Lisa, finished making her brisket (almost as good as Mom's) and asked me to slice it up. Maybe it was a little too tender or I missed the grain, but there was a whole pile of shreds of juicy meat when I was done. How I got the idea to stuff the matzoh balls with it, I don’t know – just a flash of genius. Maybe inspired by Mom’s kreplach on Rosh Hashonah. So here is how it goes.

First put that luscious meat, perhaps a cup or two, with a few tablespoons of gravy, some salt and pepper, into the Cuisinart. Mush it up real good.

Then do your matoh balls. Use the recipe on the box or the other contestants recipes if you like, just go for MEDIUM. To hard and they crumble. To soft and they won’t hold their shape. I think I use the box recipe but double the meal. Usually, I (how do you spell this?) shitarayn ( I looked it up), just throw stuff in. Oil of I don’t have schmaltz. Sometimes some greens. Let it set a bit. Then…

You make a ball. Bigger than golf, smaller than tennis. Nice and smooth. Now push your thumb into the middle and form the ball around it to form a pocket. I take a pinch – you could take a teaspoon full – of meat and fill up the pocket most of the way. Then pinch the meal over the top taking care to seal it well. A few final rolls of the palms and it’s on the tray ready for boiling.

Wait til you taste. The meat livens up the flavor. You can even figure out how to eat them so that you can get some meat with every bite.

Variation: for our more festive celebrations, someone might find the winning note wrapped in foil declaring his or her luck!

Hooray for Freedom!

Barry Raphael

P.S. My sister is not happy until one of her maztoh balls can bounce from the floor to the top of the refrigerator.

in the late l940s when I was still living with parents and sister at home in Lynn, Mass., we were all gussying up ourselves and the tenement we lived in (for $35/mo.) to celebrate passovr with our sophisticated relatives from Parkchester in the Bronx. My father was a tailor with a store across the st. from our house. He had the only phone so had to whistle if one of us was being called on the phone. We heard a whistle & he yelled, we thought, "they're bringing soup so just take c/o the matzoh balls." My Bx. uncle was in the dress business and had called to say he was bringing a suit (I was graduating from high school in June). However, since we had a v. small kitchen, I picked up the the battered aluminum pot with the chicken soup in it & poured it out. My mother was hysterical, couldn't understand why I did that, my sister yelled it's OK because they're bringing the soup. by then my father was in the kitchen & told us that, in fact, they were bringing my suit. By then we were all laughing hysterically, uncle benny and auntie mollie arrived with their sons in their l937 pontiac & joined in the hysteria. gefilte fish & home made khrain (horse radish) and hard boiled eggs & matzoh were served, and matzoh balls, not floating in soup but surrounded by cooked carrots, were served & eaten with great delight--a new style by the fancy new englanders that the bronxites wd. take back with them to parkchester. Aah, the simple joys of yesteryear. pfeingold

For years I was afraid to make matzoh balls, having heard of all the disastrous results. A few years ago, at our seder, someone made the pre-mixed out of a box matzoh balls. It was so salty and disappointing that I resolved to attempt the feat. I got a box of Manishewitz matzoh meal and followed the recipe exactly. The matzoh ball came out delicious (much to my surprise!) For the chicken soup, I cook up a chicken with carrots, onion and celery, and then I add a "secret ingredient": Knorr's chicken soup bouillion. It adds a rich chicken flavor. Chickens today just don't taste like they used to. (I know, because I grew up on a chicken farm - we ate a lot of chicken.)

Here is the recipe for matzoh balls:

2 tablespoons vegetable oil, 2 large eggs slightly beaten, 1/2 cup Manishewitz matzoh meal, 1 teaspoon salt (optional), 2 tablespoons stock or water.

1. Blend oil, eggs matzoh meal and salt.
2. Add soup stock or water and mix until uniform. Cover and place in refrigerator for 15 minutes.
3. Bring 1 1/2 quarts of water to a brisk boil.
4. Reduce flame and drop balls approximately 1 inch in diameter formed from refrigerated mixture.
5. Cover pot and cook 30-40 minutes.

Note: These matzoh balls were neither too heavy nor too light. They tasted just right to me.

"Hag Sameach"!

These stories are very nice, but why hasn't anyone posted a recipe yet? Here's mine from memory.

2 tbsp. bone marrow
2 eggs
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 c. (or less) matzos meal
A grating of nutmeg

Split the bones and remove the marrow.Mix eggs and marrow. Add salt and nutmeg to matzos meal. Mix just enough with marrow/eggs for it to hold together. Try a test in boiling water, if it does not hold together, add more meal. Shape into balls the size of a walnut. Handle as little as possible. Drop into boiling soup 15 minutes before serving.

My family had the traditional Talmudic argument, ie. cannonballs vs. fluffy floaters and somebody always wound up unhappy. (I am a fluffy floater fan.) The one ultimate law - YOU MUST MAKE THEM FROM SCRATCH! After I met my husband to be, we traveled to Florida for the Seder to meet his parents. She had the best matzoh balls I ever tasted and I asked her for her secret. She BROKE THE LAW; she used a mix, Streit's or Manischevits, she said it didn't matter, they were both good.
The next year I made them for my foodie, critical sisters and they raved! We all make it that way now and serve it proudly without lying. Try it, you'll like it. Another tip - Old Vienna Gefilte Fish (The Sweet) is also better than homemade, even better than Grandma's with the fish swimming in the bath tub, etc. My mother used to recook it with some celery, carrots, etc. but she doesn't even bother anymore. Even Mavens love it.
Thanks for this survey and Happy Passover!

I'll be happy to hear Joan Nathan on your show because "my" matzah ball recipe is actually hers. Having converted to Judaism after I married, I had no Jewish cooking instructors in my own family. My mother-in-law was a proud non-cook, so on the rare occassions she made matzah balls they came from a boxed mix. This lack of family expertise sent me searching for recipes on my own. To facilitate my efforts, my husband, another non-cook with a vested interest in my success, gave me Joan's book "The Jewish Holiday Kitchen". This will be the seventeenth Passover I'll be making her recipe for "Matzah Balls with Ginger and Nutmeg" (among several other of her recipes). These delicious matzah balls are always fluffy enough to float nicely. As my daughter has been showing an increasing interest in cooking over the past several months, I am hoping to share the recipe with her this year. The birth of a family tradition? Thank you Joan!

When my family would dicuss up who would cook what for the holidays, one or another of my aunts would very quickly volunteer to make the Matzo Ball soup--so quickly that it was never an issue.
Until, one famous Passover in the late 1950's--one we spent at my aunt Toby's house in an area that is now an integral
part of the Cross-Bronx Expressway but was then a thriving, warm West Bronx working-class neighborhood.
My own family knocked on the apartment door, expectant with anticipation and burdened with food. My father was bearing the mighty pot containing the soup itself--the rest of us--our lesser offerings. As he headed for the kitchen table--he knew quickly saw we were in trouble: There were already two similar giant pots residing there in regal splendor.

Here's what had happened. My grandmother, who lived with my aunt had pulled the age/guilt-thing and insisted on making her Matzo Balls this year. So, in order to counter that, my aunt had made some too, looking to pull a fast switch--But my grandmother--who was a shrewd cookie--had guarded her pot until everyone had come. Thus--three pots.

So, being a family, we were each of us urged to try a little of each pot--and it was then that I quickly understood why my aunts were always elbowing my grandmother aside each year. Her matzo balls sank like stones--whap! My aunt Toby's were fluffy and light and floated on the top of the soup; while my mother's were sort of in the middle--chewy--neither light nor heavy, and sort of floated in the middle of the liquid in their own matzo ball zone.

Of course, each of them gave me her recipe --recited loudly and definitively
(As I recall, my aunt Toby started off by saying, "OK, first of all, forget everything grandma just told you--this last may or may not have happened: I am close to grandma's age now and my memory for these stories has been enhanced by the sweetness of the times.)

Anyhow--they may land like a thud on the bottom--like my grandmother, Anna Molka's, hover like cloud on the top like my aunt Toby's, or take the middle ground like my mother, Rhoda's--but
Matzo Balls all they were.

I use my own recipe now when I make the soup. But, at this time of year, I often dip into my childhood memories-- because it was the family together that made the soup what it was really--in a neighborhood that was eliminated to make way for a highway that cut my childhood borough in half to "make way for the future" but which cut the heart out of the present and past.

It was over 25 years ago. I had recently met the man who would eventually become my husband. I knew Passover was coming and that he wouldn't be spending it with his children, so I decided to make a Sedar for him. I, (the shiksa) called my mother (the former Sabbos goy) and found out what to do. No, the soup I had wasn't good enough, it had to be made fresh. Matzoh balls? You are Italian, make them like meatballs.
Little did I know that unlike meatballs, matzoh balls explode when cooked. When I uncovered the pot to serve, I found matzoh balls the size of grapefruits swimmng in my soup. I learned three things from that experience.
1. small matzoh balls
2. seltzer makes them lighter
3. any man who would eat those matzoh balls AND say they were good... I was going to marry.