Like most matzo ball worshipers, I declared my allegiance young. My first distinct memory of Passover involves attempting to eat a matzo ball for each of the 10 plagues rather than dripping a dab of wine onto my plate, a ritual that struck me (even then) as kind of melodramatic.
My mother insists, of course, that she would never have allowed such a breach of the haggadah, only that I begged for a dispensation. Regardless, the precedent was established.
The thing is, in my family eating matzo balls—also known as kneidlach—was strictly a seder thing, like haroset or bitter herbs dipped in salt water. For many years, I lived under the assumption that one could only eat matzo balls on Passover, owing to one of the many laws designed to deprive the Jews of excessive pleasure.
But this turns out to have been a family edict, not a Talmudic one. In point of fact, the folks at Manischewitz—God bless them—began aggressively promoting matzo meal in the early 1900s, hoping to turn matzo balls into popular year-round delicacies.
Their efforts were wasted on my maternal grandmother Annie Rosenthal, our family’s official keeper of the kneidlach. As a result of this extraordinarily limited supply, the matzo ball became the most highly valued foodstuff of my youth, more coveted even than mint chip ice cream or chocolate-covered graham crackers.
My central supplier early on was the aforementioned Annie, a short, smoky-voiced New Yorker whose matzo balls were the Holy Grail in edible form. I have never been able to determine where her recipe came from, though as far as I was concerned, it was handed down from God Almighty. Her matzo balls weren’t just sumptuous and fluffy. They levitated on the surface of the soup, dissolved at the slightest touch of the teeth, and released the essence of every chicken in the long history of chickens.
By my late 20s, Annie was no longer in what we matzo ball fetishists call “kneidlach shape.” Her health was in a slow decline, and my mother—dutiful eldest daughter that she is—took over. Now, my mom is a great cook. And she made a great matzo ball. But filling Annie Rosenthal’s shoes, not to mention filling my craw, put mom under a lot of pressure. After a few years, she happily ceded the matzo ball mantle to her younger sister, my aunt Alice, who has long served as the family’s informal food archivist. It was she who had taken the greatest interest in traditional Jewish foods, and specifically in her mother’s various calorific recipes.
Indeed, if you subscribe (as I most certainly do) to the theory that kneidlach competence has a genetic component, Alice’s genius comes as no surprise. With her permission, I have included her excellent recipe below.
It was also Alice who introduced the notion that I might actually, you know, make my own matzo balls. My initial experiments, conducted in my early 30s, were expectedly disastrous. I was not what I (or anyone) would call an experienced chef at that point. In point of fact, the only meal that I could prepare with a true sense of confidence was French toast. I knew how to how to follow basic recipes, of course. But this was my first shot at what I’d call a traditional Jewish food, and the matzo ball, as veteran kneidlachers will tell you, is a mercurial mistress.
My first batch fell apart. My second batch came out shriveled and stony. I grew disheartened. I was living alone then, in an apartment often described as cavelike. My kitchen was basically clean, though poorly equipped. Women visited, but never for long. I fed them French toast.
I was hit hard by my matzo ball failures. My aunt Alice, consulted by phone, was blunt with her diagnoses. “Too hard means you didn’t cook them long enough,” she told me. “Or your mix was too dry. Falling apart means too wet.”
“Maybe I’m just not cut out for kneidlach,” I sniveled.
“Nonsense,” she snapped. “Try again.”
I did. Over and over. I prepared half a dozen batches before I finally seemed to find my footing—enough so that I promised my pal Rachel that I would bring the matzo balls to her next seder. It was important to my marriage prospects, I felt, to show any single women at the table how enlightened I was.
So this was my kneidlach debut. I followed Alice’s recipe to a T, of course. I boiled an entire chicken to come up with fresh schmaltz. (This proved shockingly easy, and produced a fresh soup for the balls.) I also used soda water so as to produce what culinary and rabbinical authorities call eingegeben kneidlach. (Roughly translated from Yiddish: matzo balls that release their essence.)
And my matzo balls looked poifect, steaming there on the table! This particular seder featured a number of cute, unmarried Jewish women, all of whom indulged in flirtatious ball-related patter:
“Look at those delicious balls!”
“Are those yours, Steve?”
“I could lick those babies!”
It would not be too much to state that my matzo balls were the star of the seder. That is, until my fellow diners hit their chewy, uncooked centers. Alas, as Alice eventually determined, I had failed to heat the soup to a rolling boil and had made my balls too big. I returned home in despair, ready to hang up my ladle.
But lust quickly trumped shame and I renewed my quest for the perfect ball. Here I think it would be best for the reader to imagine a movie montage, perhaps set to the bawdy AC/DC anthem “Big Balls,” in which I am seen beating eggs, heating soup, shaping matzo balls and mischievously licking schmaltz off my fingers, all while dressed in a revealing apron.
A year later, my matzo balls were beyond reproach. They had become a regular part of my repertoire, a worthy rival to my French toast. Though Alice and I have not discussed the matter explicitly, it seems clear that I will be inheriting Alice’s role when she decides to retire. After all, the other candidates from my generation (my brothers Mike and Dave) don’t even really like matzo balls that much.
One thing that will not change is the recipe, as handed down from Annie to Alice, which remains a masterpiece of simplicity. A dash of salt. Some fresh chopped parsley. A dusting of pepper on the finished product. You don’t need a bunch of fancy foodie spices. Why mess with perfection?
Aunt Alice’s Matzo Ball Recipe
(Yield: about 8 kneidlach, 2 inches in diameter)
2 tablespoons melted chicken fat
2 large eggs, slightly beaten
.5 cup commercially prepared matzo meal (meal, not matzo ball mix)
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons chicken stock or seltzer water
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
Blend fat and beaten eggs with fork. Add matzo meal and salt. Mix. Add soup stock or seltzer water. Blend until uniform. Mix in parsley. Cover mixing bowl and chill in fridge for at least 20 minutes, until firm enough to handle. Bring pot of water, or soup, to rolling boil. Form matzo balls (no larger than golf ball) and drop into water. Lower to a brisk simmer. Cover and cook for 40 minutes. Serve and eat.
This article originally appeared in Tablet magazine.
