I Make Matzos Balls (Everyone Survives)

I promised my brother I'd make matzo balls for Passover. After many years of experimentation we found the "best" recipe, that is best by the normal culinary standard of uniformity of texture and taste, to be the recipe on the side of the box. All we had in the house was a canister of whole grain matzo meal which did not have a recipe for matzo balls on the side. The previous year my father had a family friend buy regular matzo meal rather than use the whole grain stuff so the whole grain stuff was at least one lunar year old.

Where was I going to find a recipe? I turned to the web of course. (A more traditional approach would have been to go to go to a supermarket and look at boxes of matzo meal.) In the course of searching I learned that Manischewitz revolutionized matzo by inventing machines which could satisfy the rabbinical strictures (I believe that to be kosher for Passover the dough has to be be baked within 18 minutes of mixing), and that Streit's sold their lower East Side bakery in 2007, but I had a hard time finding a recipe. (In these times "hard means a web search which takes more than a minute.)

There were recipes for tri-colored matzo (green colored with pureed spinach, yellow made with turmeric and a red using tomato paste), using matzo with veal, for frying fish, etc. I passed on every recipe which promised "light and fluffy" matzo balls. My brother and I like matzo which my brother describes as aldente. I describe my preference as soft on the outside and rubbery on the inside. (Guess which one of us works in the food industry.)

Matzo Balls III (jewishfood-list.com) got my attention:

"I use a little over a cup of matzo meal but be careful, too much turns them into 'sinkers.'"

The recipe promised to serve 5. That sealed the deal: we expected 5 for seder.

A background in chemistry and biochemistry prepares one to following recipes, but not necessarily for creative cookery. I almost followed the recipe. The list of ingredients contain a "dash pepper", but the recipe doesn't describe when or even if to add the pepper. (Maybe the pepper was to throw at people who annoy the cook or to ward off evil spirits.)

Matzo balls are a subset of genus dumpling. To my embarrassment, I was surprised that the melted margarine solidified when I added it to the dry ingredients. Getting a uniform mix of the dry ingredients and the margarine provided a good aerobic workout.

I stored the matzo balls in the refrigerator, my brother used the turkey broth frozen since Thanksgiving to make the soup, and we all got to weigh in on their matzo ball preferences. Much to my relief nobody complained about the matzo balls and, as the heading states, everybody survived.

My brother conducted two services: Michael Rubiner's "The Two-Minute Haggadah" and then his own service (complete with seder plate orange) from the Maxwell House haggadah. I might have been tired. It might have been the realization of the futility of some other reason, but I refrained from complaining that the erudition of rabbinic sages is a cover for delusional numerology.

So passed another Passover.