My mother made many variations of matzo ball soup growing up. Sometimes she would go old fashioned and make a broth from scratch with a whole chicken, tons of aromatics, and a soup sock (look it up). Sometimes she would pick it up in a jar from the deli or the grocery store. Sometimes she would take someone else’s soup and then just put matzo balls in it. Sometimes she would make the Manischewitz boxed soup mix because you don’t always have time to make a four-hour stock.
All of these soups have a place in my heart but there is something very special about the instant soup mix. Cause the instant soup mix always brought soup when you least expected it. There was no preamble, no real reason to be having it. It was something that sat in the cabinet in case of emergency when there was a need for soup without it being an occasion for soup.
There’s a thing about recreating nostalgic dishes that I’ve noticed in my experimenting. We remember feelings more than we remember tastes. We recall scents better than we recall flavors. When it comes to activating a nostalgic recipe, accuracy isn’t always the straightest path to the feeling. In truth, a lot of the food I feel nostalgic for doesn’t taste very good to my adult palette.
I tried a Lunchable recently hoping for the feeling of being 8 years old and getting a lunchable even though my mother would never let me have them because they were “bad for you”. And it was awful. It didn’t bring back the feeling because it wasn’t the feeling, it wasn’t the same sensory experience.
Nostalgia is powerful because it represents a thing we can’t truly have: our past. So, when trying to recreate a flavor I find nostalgic it’s important to capture the feeling of it, not just the taste. Sometimes that means recreating something better than it was without sacrificing the key pieces that make it that thing. A Neapolitan pizza is (technically) the highest-elevated form of a pizza lunchable, but it won’t activate the sensory memory of a lunchable, it’s too far in the other direction.
So, how I can recreate powdered soup mix in a way that activates the feeling? Something that both has the flavor characteristics of the powdered stuff, with the warmth of being cooked for by someone who truly cares about you.
Please note: This article contains images of me butchering a chicken carcass. If that’s not something you want to see, consider clicking away. I reference using a bird that has the head and feet attached but took care to not include imagery of either.
An Addendum About My Mother’s Soup
I am about to tell you how to make a soup broth. In Jewish culture there is a certain reverence that must be had for “how bubbe does it”. I don’t actually have a bubbe (as in, I don’t call my grandma bubbe) but I do have a mother and my mother makes a very good soup. I’m getting that out of the way because I want to be clear I’m not here to slander my mother’s soup even though I think the broth recipe below is better by most metrics.
My mother makes a very good soup. Most mothers make a very good soup. One year, my mother tried to make gluten-free matzo ball soup and that soup… was less good. So I won’t have anyone accuse me of having rose-colored glasses when it comes to my mother’s cooking. That soup wasn’t her best work.
I have this thing where I won’t believe someone’s praise until they’ve given me criticism. I don’t trust praise that comes from someone who hasn’t proven to me that if it was bad they would say something. So, I’m telling you that I’m willing to critique the things I love so you’ll believe when I say that my mother makes a good soup. (But this soup is better).
The Chicken
The chicken is the most important part of making your stock so it’s vital that you choose your fighter with care and intention. Unlike beef or pork, chickens are pretty uniform across price brackets. Paying more for an organic or free-range chicken probably won’t be reflected too much in the taste of the bird. If you’re buying at a grocery store the cheapest chicken will probably taste exactly the same as the most expensive.
For my perfect matzo ball soup stock though, we’re going to use a non-traditional type of bird: an old stewing hen.
A stewing hen is a bird that had a former occupation as an egg layer. Most commercial chickens you buy in the U.S., even on “organic” farms, are bred to grow a lot faster than normal. This isn’t because of steroids (which haven’t been legal in chicken production in the US since the 50s) but often a combination of genetic selection and a heavily enriched diet. Most chickens at the supermarket only lived between 6 and 12 weeks. Whereas an old stewing hen lived to be probably 1 to 3 years old and had a very different life than a bird raised solely for meat.
Because of her life as an egg layer she probably ate a much more varied diet, probably moved around a lot during her life developing muscle, and depending on the farm might have even gotten to forage for her own food. This results in a chicken with leaner meat, less fat, and much larger bones. But most importantly, because of her varied diet and her age, the flavor is distinct from an ordinary chicken.
There’s a very specific reason we’re using this bird. If you buy stock at the grocery store that comes in a box or as a powder or in a jar, it’s very likely it was made with stewing hens. Stewing hens don’t often get sold for commercial distribution in stores because consumers don’t really buy them or know what they are. So, they get sold to factories that make instant or ready-made stocks.
This is why stock from a box never quite tastes the same as homemade. You might have thought it was down to the preservatives or the sodium and while those do have an effect on the flavor, the main difference is in the chicken used to make the stock.
Buying a bird like this is definitely a hassle, you’ll no doubt need to find a specialty supplier to get your hands on one. Cost-wise, you can expect them to be cheaper than an equivalent organic or pasture-raised whole bird. Though, depending on where you are and local demand, they might err expensive. But if you’re searching for that flavor there is no other way to get it than getting the right bird.
Aromatics
I’m not particularly married to the mirepoix in my everyday cooking. I think just cause the French did it one way should have no bearing on how we do things. And who the heck has celery lying around? Be so for real with me, do you have celery in your fridge? No, you don’t.
But, we’re going for traditional and traditional does mean the classic French mirepoix. For mirepoix, you’re going to need onions, carrots, and celery in a 3-2-1 ratio (3 parts onion, 2 parts carrot, 1 part celery). The ratio need not be exact just guesstimate and you’ll be fine. I’m also going to use garlic and whole black peppercorns. I’m also going to add some turmeric for the color.
It’s vital that you exercise restraint in this part of the recipe. You might want to add tons of aromatics in here but be real with yourself. This is just the stock, you are not going to eat any of the vegetables you use in here. Use the vegetables that have been in your fridge for a while, a plastic bag full of scraps in your freezer, the stuff that’s gonna go off. Save your fresh and tasty stuff for when you assemble the soup.
Butchering and Blanching the Bird
The first thing we’re going to do before we make our stock is butcher and blanch our bird. An optional step to get a deeper flavor is to buy a whole bird — head, feet, neck, everything still attached. All of those extra bits will give you deeper flavor. And it’s a nice way of honoring our ancestors who if they saw the amount of usable meat we were wasting would beat us all with spoons. And if you think that factory-made stocks aren’t using heads, feet, and necks, you’re living in a fantasy.
Butchering a whole bird, head and all, is not for the faint of heart but, I promise you that you can do it. It’s a lot easier than you think, you can find plenty of guides and tutorials on the internet.
If you do opt to get a bird that’s already broken down (no judgement) make sure you get it with the bones and skin still attached. You probably could make a stock from boneless, skinless chicken breast but… don’t make stock from boneless, skinless chicken breast have some self-respect.
Break the chicken down in roasting cuts, you don’t need to do it perfectly, everybody is going in the pot, we just want the size a little more manageable. A lot of people think that leaving it whole somehow gets you better flavor but this isn’t quite true. Exposing bones and joints actually allows more collagen and fat to get released which will give you a richer stock. This is a matter of personal preference so if you’d rather leave the chicken whole, go for it.
Once the chicken is broken down (or not) we’re going to start by blanching it. This is an important step for making any stock that I think people often skip and they really shouldn’t.
Put the pieces in cold water and bring it up to boil and then leave it at a hard simmer for about 10-20 minutes (depending on how much you broke down the bird). This is going to quickly rid you of impurities or excess blood or hairs or dirt left on the bird. No, you’re not removing “flavor”, what you’re really doing is making sure nothing gets in the way of the flavor. Trust me, the bird is going to spend plenty of time in the water, your stock will be perfectly flavorful and won’t have any (literal) stray hairs.
Once time is up, drain and discard the water. Now, you’re ready to make stock.
Assemble and Babysit Your Stock
Add your blanched chicken and your roughly cut-up aromatics to a pot and cover completely. Normally, I would recommend a couple of extra steps for added flavor. Browning off the aromatics in a dry pan, roasting the bones, things like that. But, our end goal is a relatively clear broth so we’re going to refrain for the sake of getting the purest chicken flavor imaginable.
To make your babysitting job easier you can employ a soup sock at this step. A soup sock is a big cheesecloth sack in which you can throw all your meats and aromatics and dip that in the water.
This gives you a kind of tea-bag situation. Your chicken and aromatics still release their flavor into the water but you can pull them out easily in one motion and take with you any scum that accumulated.
Your stock now sits on the stove for as long as you can bear, though I wouldn’t do anything less than four hours. Check on it every 20-30 minutes and gently skim any scum that floats to the top. You can do this with a small mesh strainer, a silicone spoon, or even a metal spoon that’s icy cold will do the trick.
Remove the chicken
Your chicken is going to finish cooking after probably an hour or two of simmering (if you broke it down). You’ll be able to tell it’s cooked because it will be falling off of the bones. If you want to keep the stock simmering but don’t want to overcook your chicken be sure to take it out and set it aside until it’s time for soup.
Leave the bones and aromatics in the soup and let them keep going as long as you want. After patiently waiting for several hours, now we’re going to add salt.
Salt
A good rule of thumb for salt is about 1% by volume. Salting a stock is an art form, you want just enough salt to bring out all the flavors but not so much it tastes salty. However, we’re going for the soup that comes in a powdered mix which means salty. So, don’t feel bad if you overseason a touch, that’s on brief.
Soup Time
Now you have a stock that is ready for soup. When it comes to assembly this is the part where you do it how you’ve always done it. Saute some veggies (I do leeks, carrots, and turnips), add your stock, shredded poached chicken, and let everyone get to know each other all over again.
Add your matzo balls (however you make them or according to package instructions) and leave them in the pot, covered, for at least twenty minutes. If you’re a real one, make your matzo balls with seltzer instead of still water. If you’re a maniac, use white claws instead of seltzer.
If you’re feeling fancy consider topping it with an herb oil or some fried garlic or even just a squeeze of lemon. If you’re feeling brave, call a friend and invite them to a debate about whether or not to put dill in your soup. I am from a non-dill household but I do not judge others for their (wrong) choices to put dill on their soup.
Conclusion
In summary, this is an amazing broth. It’s rich, has that familiar yellow tinge, and is bursting with chicken flavor. The scent reminds me a lot of the Ossem instant chicken consomme that my mom always had in the cupboard (the one that comes in a red plastic tub). The flavor you get from the stewing hen is unique but familiar. There’s almost a gamey quality to it, a little bit of grassiness similar to what you get from really high-quality beef.
Does it take me back? Yes and no. Like I said, we can’t truly revisit the past but this takes me somewhere familiar, somewhere I feel safe and loved. That is worth the many hours it took to construct.