Matzah Balls

[Swisskaese]

I know it is a little late for the seder, but they are good all year long. I made my family's recipe that has been passed down from generation to generation. These matzah balls are made with the whole matzah and look and taste entirely different from matzah meal ones. My paternal grandmother is from Nord-Rhein Westphalian (German-Dutch border) and these matzah balls are from this area and the Alsace. I haven't met anyone outside of my family that makes this type of matzah ball.

Are your matzah balls different from the standard?

I thought I would show you how I make mine. I am not a professional cook nor do I play one on TV .

My family recipe is in RecipeGullet

I start with the ingredients:

Whole matzah, eggs, onion, salt, pepper, nutmeg, goose and chicken fat, and parsley

Place the matzah in a colander

Run cold water over the matzah just until it is moist, not water logged. Break it up into chunks. Drain over the sink or a bowl.

Melt the goose and chicken fat and remove in any solids before adding the onions.

Fry the chopped onions until brown.

I will be back with more photos later.....

[Pam R]

I've never seen matzo balls made this way- I can't wait to see where you go from here.

[BeeZee]

Could this work with Matzo Farfel, also? I see you've broken up the "boards", and farfel is just smaller pieces?

[Swisskaese]

Could this work with Matzo Farfel, also? I see you've broken up the "boards", and farfel is just smaller pieces?

←

I am not sure. I have never used matzah farfel. I don't even know how big the pieces are.

[Swisskaese]

You want to brown the onions until they are brown. The browned onions add a nice nutty flavour to the matzah balls.

Then you add the matzah, salt, pepper and nutmeg. Saute until mixed thoroughly and the mixture is dry. Remove from the heat and add the parsley.

Sorry for the blurry picture

This is the mixture after I have placed it in a bowl to cool. I added the eggs and the matzah meal.

Then I rolled them in to walnut size balls and rolled them in a little matzah meal.

Here is the finished product.

[jackal10]

Are we by chance related? That is exactly how I and my family make Matzo Kleis. I made some yesterday, as it happens. Accept no other. Much better than those solid lumps of knaidlach!

Might add that I leave the rolled kleis in the fridge to set up for an hour or two before dropping them in the soup to boil. Less likely to break up. They will also store uncooked in the fridge for a day or two. Also maybe a little more parsley, and no nutmeg.

You can find a very similar recipe in Florence Greenberg's Jewish Cookery, the classic Anglo-Jewish cookbook as Matzoh Ball 1. She adds a little ginger..

"The Rabbi's wife made Matzo Kleis,

She made them once, she made them twice

and then no more..."

My family is from Alsace originally.

Edited April 14, 2006 by jackal10 (log)

[therese]

So they're just bread dumplings, but made with matzoh, right? So no surprise that anybody from an area that traditionally makes bread dumplings might make matzoh balls with matzoh rather than meal, right?

They look great, by the way.

[Swisskaese]

I don't think my family is from the Alsace, but you never know. I have traced that side of the family to the late 1700s and they are all from Germany.

I also put them in the fridge and they also freeze well. I place them on a cookie sheet and freeze them and then place them in a ziploc freezer bag. They keep about three months.

Edited April 14, 2006 by Swisskaese (log)

[Swisskaese]

So they're just bread dumplings, but made with matzoh, right? So no surprise that anybody from an area that traditionally makes bread dumplings might make matzoh balls with matzoh rather than meal, right?

They look great, by the way.

←

Semmelknoedel are Bavarian, not from the area that my family is from. Nord-Rhein Westphalian is famous for sauerbraten, pumpernickel bread and Westphalian ham which is similar to prosciutto.

My great-grandfather made a beef version of Westphalian ham and it was out of this world. Unfortunately, no one else bothered to learn how to make it. He built a smoker in his backyard. I can still taste it to this day. I was 11 years old when he died at the ripe old age of 91. I miss you Opa.

Edited April 14, 2006 by Swisskaese (log)

[Nyleve Baar]

My late mother in law who was from Bratislava used to make matzoh balls from whole matzohs but a little differently than that. I was always somehow dragooned into making them with her and so learned how to do it even though, every single year, she used to make them slightly differently because she had no written recipe (of course).

Soaked the matzohs and mushed them up. Added egg and vegetable oil and some seasonings. And a little matzoh meal just to bind them - then rolled into balls and cooked IN THE SOUP.

They were, I suppose in retrospect, delicious. But to be honest I still love the fluffers best.

[silverbrow]

As far as I can tell, the addition of onions to any matzo balls is relatively unusual. I follow my grandmother's recipe which includes them, but virtually everyone outside of my family thinks this is bonkers - until they taste them.

Her family came from Holland and given the Alsace, Nord-Rhein Westphalian, Dutch link between Swisskaese, Jackal and myself, there appears to be a fairly tight corridor of Northern Europe that uses the addition of onion. I'd be intrigued to hear of people with other backgrounds that also add onions. What I find particularly odd is that fried onions feature so much elsewhere in traditional Ashkenazi cooking they seem an obvious addition to matzo balls.