Three Simple Ingredients Make Matzo Ball Soup Better Than Bubbe’s

(Bloomberg) -- Editor’s note: As we leave our home kitchens to dine out more, the weekly Lunch Break column has evolved to highlight dishes from a variety of sources: a new or reopened restaurant; a newsmaking person, place, or recipe; or, of course, a great cookbook.

Michael Solomonov has developed a legion of fans for his superb, heartfelt cooking at the Israeli restaurant Zahav in Philadelphia. The five-course tasting menu celebrates one of the silkiest versions of hummus you’ll ever taste, and don’t get us started on his famed pomegranate-rubbed lamb shoulder. The chef, who was born in Israel and began his cooking career at a bakery there, has won the James Beard award for Outstanding Chef, while Zahav was named the best restaurant in the U.S. in 2019.

Still, there’s one Jewish specialty that gave Solomonov trouble: matzo ball soup.

“Just because I’m a Jewish chef doesn’t mean I was born with a natural talent for matzo balls,” he writes in Zahav: A World of Israeli Cooking (Harper Collins; $28), co-authored with Steven Cook. He recalls an event, early on in his career, when he was hired to cater an upscale Passover dinner. “I put foie gras matzo balls on the menu. I cooked hundreds of dollars worth of foie gras, using the rendered fat in the matzo ball mix and then stuffing each ball with a little nugget of the liver.” The result? “The matzo balls fell apart and ended up in the garbage can.”

Since then, Solomonov has perfected the art of the matzo ball, the oft-maligned yet never-skipped staple of Passover dinners. The trick, he says, is not to try to recreate them as a luxurious item; instead it’s to make the plump matzo rounds hold together and, well, taste delicious. And so he adds a spoonful of baking powder, an old-school trick he learned from Cook’s mother that helps keep them light and cohesive. He also throws in a pinch of cinnamon.

But the chef doesn’t stop there, he also enhances the soup with black garlic, the fermented, sweet-tangy ingredient popular in various Asian cuisines. Solomonv got the idea when he was working on a different dish. “We were making a black harissa at Zahav using black garlic, black olives, and urfa peppers. We had it on hand and decided to throw it into the broth,” he said over email. He immediately appreciated the kick from the fermented garlic. He describes it as “kind of funky and sour—it gives a fun, different note to the broth.”

The irony of the inclusion of the matzo ball soup in the Zahav cookbook is that it’s never been featured at the tasting menu restaurant. Nor will it appear at Solomonov’s upcoming restaurant, Laser Wolf, which opens on the rooftop of New York’s Hoxton hotel in early May. The Williamsburg, Brooklyn, outpost of the original in Philadelphia celebrates the art of Israeli skewers as well as dishes like date and harissa wings with tahini ranch, shawarma-spiced cauliflower, and whole branzino with ginger and tomato, cooked over charcoal.  

Variations of the soup are often available at another of Solomonov and Cook’s restaurants, the Jewish soul food spot Abe Fisher, in Philadelphia.  But if you want this version, for Passover, or just for comfort, you have to make it yourself.

The recipe is dead simple: Into a couple quarts of chicken stock (best you can get your hands on), simmer some sliced carrots and celery, and the aforementioned black garlic.

Don’t worry if you can’t find it: Even though Solomonov says there’s no obvious substitute for the “fermented sourness of black garlic,” the chef directed me to fry or roast garlic cloves when my own ingredient sourcing efforts turned up empty. (Check your nearest Asian or specialty food supermarkets, or, if you have a slow cooker and two to three weeks lead time, here’s a recipe to make black garlic at home; select Whole Foods stock it, too.)

Even the roasted garlic substitute adds a pungent, caramelized sweetness to the chicken soup—it’s a trick more people should adopt when they need a bowl of instant comfort. And those matzo balls? They’re marvelously fluffy, with a firm bite. But their real genius might be the hit of cinnamon, which gives them a soft spicy sweetness and amps that comfort factor even higher.

Matzo Ball Soup With Black Garlic

Serves 4

4 black garlic cloves, or 4 peeled fresh garlic cloves plus 1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 qt. chicken stock or chicken broth
2 carrots, sliced
2 stalks celery, sliced
1 tsp. kosher salt
2 large eggs
2 tbsp. schmaltz (rendered chicken or goose fat), at room temperature, or vegetable oil
½ cup matzo meal
½ tsp. baking powder
Pinch of ground cinnamon
Chopped fresh dill, for serving

If using fresh garlic, heat the 1/3 cup vegetable oil to 350F. Add the peeled garlic and cook until golden brown, 2 to 3 minutes. Transfer to paper towels to drain.

In a large saucepan, combine the stock, carrots, celery, black or fried garlic, and salt. Bring to a simmer and cook for 30 to 40 minutes, until the vegetables are tender. Discard the garlic.

Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, combine the eggs and schmaltz or vegetable oil and stir until blended. Add the matzo meal, baking powder, and cinnamon and mix well—the mixture will thicken as it sits. Using wet hands, pull off golf ball-size pieces of the dough and shape into rounds; you should have 8.

In a lightly salted pot of boiling water, cook the matzo balls for 25 to 30 minutes, or until cooked through (cut one open to be sure).

Ladle the broth into soup bowls and add 2 matzo balls to each bowl. Top with dill and serve.

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