Cookaholics Bulletin Board

A week or two ago I heard about a cookbook / blog called "Pati's Mexican Table" by Pati Jinich on The Splendid Table. It was the Passover show and she was talking about how the Jews who moved to Mexico generations ago have changed the traditional Jewish foods to be more Mexican. As every culture adapts their food to where they live.

On the show she mentioned her Mexican Matzo Ball Soup, and it sounded so incredible, with jalapenos and sauteed onions, that we just had to try it. I used "my" Matzo ball recipe with the additions of her unique ingredients: nutmeg and parsley. For the soup, I riffed on what she does because she uses a spicy, mushroom broth but my husband doesn't like mushrooms.

My version of the soup itself was sauteed onions, red pepper, a jalapeno and a fresh ancho chili. I added garlic and a few strips of carrot. Sweated down all of the veggies with a dash of cumin and chipotle powder, added homemade chicken broth and then added in the cooked matzo balls.

It was incredibly good. We limited ourselves to one bowl each with green salad, but I could have very easily demolished another. It was not traditional matzo ball soup by any means. Slightly spicy, savory, just... wow. And my house smells amazing.

Highly recommended. Here is a link to her original mushroom based recipe.

--Lisa

Lisa,

Sounds great. Sadly, my sweetie doesn't like mushrooms or jalopenos. So I'll just have to fantasize.

There's also a "classic" recipe for Sphardic Matzoh Ball Soup, as supposedly prepared by Spanish/Turkish Jews. I say "supposedly" because matzoh balls are pretty obviously the product of Eastern European Jews, since they're closely related to the many bread dumplings found in Germany, Austria, and Czech. But even if it doesn't date back to the 19th century, the recipe is pretty tasty:

http://www.tigersandstrawberries.com/20 ... ball-soup/

That sounds really good too. Very rich. Bookmarking this thread so we can try it.

Thank you!