This Sunday, B'nai El Congregation in Frontenac will host its fourth annual chicken soup cookoff. The temple's executive director, Sue Basely, says about a dozen people will convene from all over the area to try to win the Golden Matza Ball. (Okay, there is no such trophy, but good lord, that would be cool).
Why is there a mystical quality ascribed to chicken soup? Can it cure colds? Can it warm cockles both physical and metaphysical? What are cockles, anyhow?
In search of answers to this mystical conundrum, I opened the Ark of the Covenant and communed with the Angel of Death. Bad move (link)
Instead, a conversation with a certain lady who has made chicken soup one of her raisons d'etre seemed to be in order.
Let's hear from Arleen "The Maven" Kerman, aka my mom, on the whys and wherefores of this golden elixir of celebration and recovery.
Me: Describe your process for making chicken soup.
Mom: You gotta be kidding. You want the whole thing?
Me: Yes.
Mom: Fine. First of all, I go and get my huge pot, "the vat." The meat is one stewing hen, eight leg quarters, six whole breasts, two pounds of marrow bones, a turkey thigh, and a pound and a half piece of flanken [chuck meat].
Me: That's quite a variety.
Mom: My grandfather was a kosher butcher, so we always had a lot of meat to work with. For vegetables I use six ribs of celery, 15 carrots, a medium onion, and I use a parsnip.
Me: A parsnip?
Mom: This is the recipe I got from my mother, who got it from her mother. I added the parsnip, though. Who knew about parsnips back then?
Me: What's next?
Mom: Clean the chicken and the other meat, put it in the pot, cover it with water about four inches above the level of the meat, simmer it slowly, and skim off the fat as needed.
Me: I've seen you skim -- it's like you're constantly skimming.
Mom: Sometimes you have to skim every ten minutes or so. Then you add the vegetables and slow-cook for anywhere from three to five hours. I add more water as it evaporates, and salt and pepper as needed. It’s done when the stock is a dark, deep yellow and tastes right, and the meat is all fork-tender. Then I strain it, and separate the chicken from the vegetables. I save the carrots and throw out everything else.
Me: That's not true, you save the chicken meat.
Mom: You're right, I forgot that part. I take the meat and make chicken salad later.
Me: Which is fantastic.
Mom: Thank you. I also sometimes take the chicken and lay it in a roasting pan over sautéed onions, add paprika and garlic, put it in the oven for 20 minutes, and serve it as baked chicken.
Me: Is that deceptive?
Mom: Yeah.
Me: Continue with the soup.
Mom: Put the stock in the fridge overnight to chill and a layer of fat comes to the top. Skim it off. But if it's near Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur, I save some of the schmaltz (rendered chicken fat) for the matza balls. The way you know you have a good soup is if the next day it looks like Jell-O. The marrow bones give it that consistency, and that shows you that you have a rich soup with body.
Me: How do other cooks make chicken soup differently than you?
Mom: Other people might add herbs or more vegetables at the end, but I like to make it pure.
Me: This takes a long time.
Mom: It's an all-day process. I have to clean all the vegetables, all the meat, and I'm working with a huge, 24-quart pot.
Me: Is it worth it?
Mom: You know how good it is.
Me: It's liquid gold, for sure.
Mom: People sometimes ask for a second bowl, or the recipe. Sometimes they come for dinner and the first thing they ask is "Did you make soup?"
Me: Does it freeze well?
Mom: Yes, very.
Me: Is there one secret to making great chicken soup?
Mom: Patience. I try not to cook in haste, I try to relax and enjoy cooking, and that makes a big difference in the end product.
Me: Is chicken soup good for what ails you?
Mom: Absolutely. The first thing you give a sick person is chicken soup. It is the Jewish penicillin.
Me: What are the controversies in the world of chicken soup?
Mom: Well, you used to use chicken feet, and that acted as a thickener. If you know a good Chinese butcher, you can still get chicken feet on the black market. You also used to be able to ask the butchers for "eggele" -- unhatched eggs from inside the chicken (link). They looked like round yellow gumballs with a membrane around them. I used to cook them in the soup. Those are much harder to get now that there are hardly any independent butchers.
Me: I remember those! They were great.
Mom: You used to call them "eyeballs."
Me: Yes! What are the best things to add to chicken soup?
Mom: To the broth I add either matza balls, matza farfel [smashed matza], noodles, rice, or of course, my famous floating matza farfel kugel [casserole].
Me: Describe that.
Mom: I learned this from my grandmother. You put the matza kugel in a little round glass Pyrex bowl and bake it in the oven until brown.
Me: Wait, you don't put the matza farfel in the oven by itself. What do you thicken it with to make the kugel?
Mom: That's a family secret.
Me: Oh, good grief.
Mom: You remove the kugel from the oven and slowwwwwwly put it in the heated soup so it doesn't break apart, and warm them together for 45 minutes. The kugel blows up like a soufflé. Then my grandmother would lift it out of the soup with a huge spatula and cut it in squares and serve it in the soup. I now do it an easier way -- I make "mini-kugels" with a mini-muffin pan, then put them in the soup, and warm them together.
Me: Your way is easier?
Mom: Yes -- because the pot on the stove is taller than I am.
Me: If this isn't too personal, would you describe your matza balls as hard or soft?
Mom: Medium. When you drop my matza ball it lays there -- it doesn't bounce.
Me: You learned to cook from your grandmother and your mother
Mom: And my mother's three sisters. I have pictures of my mother and her sisters cooking in the kitchen for the Jewish holidays, in aprons, with their hair in curlers, and smoking cigarettes.
Me: Those were the days.
Mom: You wanna talk about brisket now?
Me: Next time.
