Not so matzo man

I love cuisine influenced by culture or region. The flavors, textures, and visual elements are exciting and I adore having a lot of variety in my diet. After all, if I have to provide three meals plus snack every day of every year I may as well shake it up now and then, right?

Man has a deep distrust for any food that isn't "normal", though what exactly "normal" is has yet to be determined. We've gone over his list of likes and dislikes many times throughout the years and it changes constantly. One thing will always remain on the dislike list, however, and that's meat with bones. Any bones at all. Give the Man a T-bone steak and the bone will ruin the entire cut for him. The only meat he will appreciate that has bones in it is a brined turkey with plenty of homemade whole berry cranberry sauce. The good news is he will happily eat anything I make that's remotely palatable and unhappily eat anything I make that isn't. He says "thank you" every night and, thanks to Love Language stuff, I know he means it. :)

I tried making some seitan the other day using the "make some dough and wash the starch out" method. I was astounded at how small my lump of dough got. It was less than half the original mass. Boiling it resulted in a product that was very plain and for all intents and purposes the fraternal twin of medium textured tofu. I'm sure that simmering or sauteeing with a good stock/sauce would help matters tremendously. The point remains that it's a lot like tofu meaning the texture is kinda oogy. The only tofu I've had with an really great texture was some my neighbor made many moons ago. I need to email her and ask for the recipe . Man was rather horrified at the bland, weakly textured seitan I had produced from an inferior recipe and requested that I indulge my desire to experiment with it over lunch, and then make something "normal" for dinner.

Anyway, along the lines of "let's take a starchy base, add a couple things and then boil it" we find the dumpling. I've never understood dumplings. I've heard people from the South rave about them, praising light and fluffy ones, gushing over how they melt in the mouth and how no respectable chicken and noodle dish was complete without them. The only dumplings I experienced growing up were the delightful ones my mom made with the saur braaten meal I loved as a young person. They were simmered over red cabbage and managed to be fluffy and dry on the inside and deliciously sauce soaked on the bottom. Then I grew up and tried to make my own with spectacularly nasty results. I always ended up with tough, chewy, coat-your-mouth, pasty lumps.

Then I learned about matzo balls. Matzo, of course, is a Jewish flat bread. They grind it up to make matzo meal, which in turn it used as the base ingredient in these fascinating little lumps. I never could imagine what in the world a matzo ball would be like. Would it be dry on the inside like Mom's? Would it be pasty and gross like mine, yet somehow manage to become a cultural delicacy fit to grace a high holy day? Descriptions range from light and fluffy to dense and meaty. After catching glimpses of matzo meal in stores around this time of year for years, I finally decided to see what the big deal was.

However, I'm about to be disowned by every Jewish friend I have when I tell you that I made them with bread crumbs and then added them to chicken soup. Sorry, guys.

Yesterday was just a chicken soup day. It also could have been "eat the whole Cocoa Reserve bar in 5 mins" day. Or "eat the entire carton of double cookie dough ice cream" day. Instead I thought it was safer to have chicken soup and homemade bread (from a machine) day. So I got my bread crumbs out of the cupboard, measured, mixed, boiled, and eventually produced some matzo-style balls.

They have baking soda in them as well as eggs. Between the two I got something that managed to be light and fluffy and completely water-logged at the same time. I had added some herbs and garlic salt and found that after simmering them in my own personal batch of soup with lunch today the flavors were perfect. The texture was like nothing I'd ever had in a soup -- not as meaty as the chicken, not as soft as the simmered cabbage. It was just firm enough to hold it's shape and need cutting with a spoon but light enough to melt in the mouth, dispersing its flavors among a mouthful of soup.

These little things are completely surprising to me and wonderfully versatile. I'll have to try the firm variety and see which style finds favor.

But you know... I have yet to even mention to Man that I made these things. They are on a plate in the fridge, hanging out until I decide to do with the rest of them. If he's seen them, he hasn't said a word. Maybe he's hoping I won't mention it either and he'll duck having to be the taste tester for one of my "not-normal" cuisine-hopping trials. Maybe next time I'll have to get some real matzo meal and silently serve them as a side dish with dinner. Mwahahaha.

This was a fun article to read about the Battle of the Matzo Balls.