Friday, April 18, 2008

How to Make Terrible Matzoh Balls

I'm making matzoh balls today. The dough is resting. I looked up my notes, and found that I have recorded some ways to court failure with matzoh balls:
  1. Don’t let the dough rest long enough. The recommended 15 minute waiting time for the dough to condition itself is not long enough. If you wait only 15 minutes you will have hard matzoh balls, as the fat & moisture won't be absorbed enough. If you wait longer, the result will be better.
  2. To make the matzoh balls fall apart, put them in water that’s only simmering instead of very hot -- at a rapid boil.
  3. Take the lid off the pot often to let the steam out. Letting steam escape helps to prevent the matzoh balls from getting light and well-cooked inside. Leaving the lid on makes them lighter and fluffier.
  4. Don't boil them long enough. The time on the package is just enough. A little more is ok too. If you want them to be hard and undercooked, take them out sooner.
  5. Leave the cooked matzoh balls in the broth for the soup for a long time. They will absorb the liquid and you won't have enough broth to serve all your guests.
I'll let you know how they come out, and post a photo if they don't get eaten up too fast. We are having them as a stand-alone treat tonight as there are really too many dishes planned at the Seder.

2 comments:

  1. Enjoy and Hag Sameach!

    I make my matzoh balls with the mix, but use one egg and one egg white and 1 TBS oil and 1 TBS water. They've turned out pretty well in the past.

    I'm impressed you make yours from scratch. The one or two times I tried that they were closer to lead weights.

    ReplyDelete
  2. If your matzoh balls came out like lead weights maybe you followed one or more of my suggested ways to make "terrible matzoh balls."

    Last night I used the Joan Nathan recipe, but the one on the Maneshevitz matzoh meal package is also good (unless you follow the instructions for terrible ones).

    I hope you have a great Seder tonight!

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for commenting. Please include a link to your current blog so that I can read your blog and share more of what you are thinking. Your google-blog-ID may not link to a blog hosted at another site, so please let me know who you REALLY are!