Lesson 1.2: How to Make Chicken Soup — Matzo Ball Soup

Notes from the Kitchen
. Each chef needs her own chef's knife.
. Grocery store vegetables are about 1/2 the size of farm vegetables—double ingredients accordingly.
. Mise en place (preparing ingredients first) is effective.
. Cutting the bone-in breast involves cutting off the chicken's "back."
. Organic chickens are more pleasant to cut up than conventional.
. The chicken tender is on the underside of the breast, and easily separates
after cooking.
. Soup pots—taller than wide—would be useful in minimizing evaporation.
. Simmer—not boil—keeps the chicken moist and tender.
. Crack an egg on a flat surface to avoid shell in your beaten egg.
. Hand-whipping egg whites into stiff peaks is possible.
. Dark meat cooks longer because it is a slow-twitch muscle unlike breast meat,
a fast-twitch muscle.
. Recipe feeds 4, not 6 to 8.



Notes of Less Pertinence but Equal Importance

. Start with a beverage before sinking your hands into chicken fat.
. Blake and Claudine have more notebooks than a stationery store.
. Measure 3 times and cut (pour) once. (Ahem, Laura.)
. Get used to eating dinner at midnight.

Eating the Results
Laura says: Clear and flavorful broth with almost no oil (deft skimming Claudine!) almost didn't need the matzo ball, or at least two. The carrots were soft without becoming mushy and perfectly sweetened the soup. Chicken sandwiches from the spare meat made for a perfect pre-soup snack.

Claudine says: So pleased with first lesson. A lot of fun and I already feel I've learned new techniques and skills. Have since made the chicken soup and found that even with consistent simmering (unlike first attempt where we discovered how hard it is to keep something at a simmer without boiling) the chicken pieces still took much longer to cook than the estimates in the recipe. I think this does have to do with not being able to get a small enough chicken. (Martha also says you will end up with three cups of chicken meat off the bones and I think I had at least four or five cups.)



Useful Links
How to Cut Up a Whole Chicken
Basic Chicken Stock


Homework
Lesson 1.1 How to Make White Stock (Basic Chicken Stock)