In every partnership, a division of labor emerges over time that allows each partner to play to their strengths, stay out of each other’s way, and efficiently get shit done together.
In our house, I do most of the cooking, because I genuinely love everything about it … with one very important exception: I always fuck up the salt.
So I’ll do everything in a recipe until the “salt to taste” step. At that point, I summon Anne (usually with my voice, though in my imagination I am using a bat signal that projects the Morton’s girl with the umbrella) and she uses whatever weird magical skill she has to put in exactly the right amount of salt.
A few weeks ago, I was making soup. Anne had to run to the store when I got to the “salt to taste” step, and I would be lying if I told you that I did not panic, hard. I mean, a normal person would be, like, “Oh, I guess I’ll wait until she gets back,” but not me! Bill Junior was a DAREDEVIL! Just like his old man.
“Look on the Internet,” a mysterious voice echoed in my head, “look for ‘how much salt for two quarts of soup’ and math will save you.”
The voices in my head have never lead me astray (well, except for all those times they did), so I did a quick search.
This is where I tell you that this post isn’t about the salt, but I know at least one of you wants to know the answer, so I’ll also tell you that it’s about a teaspoon, which is what I put into my soup, with trembling hands.
Fuck yeah, math! It was perfect.
But that’s not what this is about. This is about an entirely different recipe that I saw a little further down in the search results; it’s about the Martha Stewart recipe for basic chicken soup.
Martha Stewart always makes food in such interesting ways, I was curious to know what her take was on chicken soup.
Oh my god, it’s incredible.
She tells us to buy a whole chicken, cut it up, and use it to make the stock. Then we pull it out of the stock, cut the meat off the bones, and return that meat into the stock we just made.
Quick aside: this is the point in writing this post that yet another voice in my head asserts that this isn’t interesting and I should just delete it. I’m doing my best to push on through, though.
I showed the recipe to Anne when she got home (after I asked her to taste my properly-salted soup — she loved it) and then texted it to our family chat, because Ryan likes to cook as much as I do (I love that I passed that along to him, without even trying). We all agreed that it looked amazing.
Last night was the first opportunity I’ve had to make this recipe and HOLY SHIT YOU GUYS.
It’s so much fun, it’s so satisfying, and the resulting soup was so magnificent, I almost couldn’t believe that I made it.
And yet, I needed to go further. I needed to make some matzo balls.
That’s also something I’d never done before, but I knew it was simple enough. So I made some matzo meal in the food processor, followed a simple recipe, and ended up with something that wasn’t too bad for a Gentile’s first attempt.
I put it all together and …
It was so good. The matzo balls were a little too big, but that’s an easy fix for next time.
Oh, and … it was perfectly salted.
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In my house I am mostly relegated to eating duties – but I can tell you as an expert in that field that my wife makes this version as well and OMFG you are 100% correct. Soup shouldn’t be that good.
I bow to you. I just order from Russ & Daughters in NYC on Goldbelly when I want a Matzoh ball soup fix. Though I HAVE ordered, in the past, from a deli in West Hollywood.
Well done you! Bring on the soup weather please.
Despite being a musician and a writer my whole life, cooking is actually my happiest of places. I’m glad to see that you’ve also found the joy. Also glad that I’m not alone in being a salt fucker-upper.
Not only that but I always way over-spice everything, as though I learned to cook while participating in a series of dares. But in order to save my relationship, I learned this simple principle: “You can always add, but it’s really hard to subtract.” This is how I managed to make our last curry night into not a debate over what “a reasonable amount of cayenne pepper” is. Your soup looks great!
The next level – you ever make a roux?
So glad you pushed through and didn’t hit delete!! Loved this post.
That looks amazing! And I’m glad the internet has finally fulfilled one of its intended purposes (perfecting recipes). (The other, of course, is sharing cat pictures.)
My SIL shared her recipe for broccoli (or spinach) and cheese soup, and my daughter and I change it a little every time we made it. More Swiss. Less broccoli. More tiny egg noodles. It’s always good, but always an experiment. A joy to share!
That looks simply delicious! It will make a fine addition to soup season.
Jewish reader here: There is no such thing as a matzoh ball that is too big. Ask for matzoh-ball soup the next time you’re in a Kosher restaurant if you need confirmation.
Well, I suppose that once you get to planetary mass the matzoh ball may be too big…
Congrats on the perfectly salted soup, Wil! Yeah, it’s finally SOUP SEASON! 😀 That looks incredible!!
I tried making matzo balls a few months ago and realized (unfortunately) that one of my food allergies had gotten worse. It was also my fault for not checking the ingredients because I wasn’t expecting that particular herb…now I know…next time I’ll find a way to make it without that herb ^^;;. I took an extra Zyrtec.
I cook most of the time in my house, at least partly in self defense. Much as I love my husband, I have to say that cooking is just not his forte.
Salt & I have a peculiar relationship. I don’t like much in my food. When I was learning to cook, my family was dealing with my dad’s diagnosis with cardiac issues, so we were on a low-salt low-fat diet. That’s the way I learned to cook everything. Most commercial soups have a boatload of salt in them, and they make me gag. Luckily for me, my grandmother taught me how to take either fresh or roasted poultry and turn it into stock, which I’ve been doing ever since, some 50+ years now.
I make stock all the time, and either freeze it or pressure-can it so I have a good supply on hand all the time. Even if I’m not making soup, I use a little stock or broth in main dishes and sauces all the time. Ironically, my husband is also a heart patient (first heart attack at age 39), so it’s a darned good thing I know how to cook in a way that best supports his health.
Well done on the mathing, and a reminder that the internet can actually be a useful tool, as originally intended. I used to have a recipe for a creamy chicken soup that did the same thing but with a whole chicken. It was hugely satisfying to put a chicken in a big pot with vegetables and simmer away, very Loony Tunes. Damn good soup at the end, too.
Good for you! I grew up with a baba (grandmother) who made soup each and every Sunday, filling a pot that would feed us all week long. Soup is good for the soul as well as the stomach. Bravo, Will! (And I don’t care if you mentioned your chicken soup before, because a good story (and soup) is life.)
Better yet. Roast the chicken. Eat dinner. Then make the soup using the leftover bones. Strain. Add the meat etc.
Excellent!! Did your recipe for matzo balls include chicken fat? If not, it will add that je nail se quoi!
I love chicken soup (with and without matzo balls) and I’ve made stock before (from the remains of a roast chicken I made, using a mashup of Nigella Lawson’s and Jamie Oliver’s recipes) so I’m definitely going to check out Martha’s recipe and make a pot of soup this fall or winter.
It’s funny. As a child, I mostly hated chicken soup, or at least chicken broth. I loved all the chunky bits, whether it was noodles, or dumplings, or vegetables. Those bits were my favorite. I totally would have eaten the hell out of that soup! Heck, as an adult I’d eat the hell out of that soup. Looking up Martha Stewart’s recipe now (which isn’t far off from what we did when I was a kid… minus the chopping up the chicken).
While it’s been a hot minute since I last had motza ball soup, the size looks about right from the last time I had some from the deli. It always took up most of the bowl so you were always cutting a piece of to have in each spoonful of soup. 🙂
I cook most of the time in my house, at least partly in self defense. Much as I love my husband, I have to say that cooking is just not his forte.
Salt & I have a peculiar relationship. I don’t like much in my food. When I was learning to cook, my family was dealing with my dad’s diagnosis with cardiac issues, so we were on a low-salt low-fat diet. That’s the way I learned to cook everything. Most commercial soups have a boatload of salt in them, and they make me gag. Luckily for me, my grandmother taught me how to take either fresh or roasted poultry and turn it into stock, which I’ve been doing ever since, some 50+ years now.
I make stock all the time, and either freeze it or pressure-can it so I have a good supply on hand all the time. Even if I’m not making soup, I use a little stock or broth in main dishes and sauces all the time. Ironically, my husband is also a heart patient (first heart attack at age 39), so it’s a darned good thing I know how to cook in a way that best supports his health.
I love that you have a post about soup. Do not listen to the voices in your head that tell you to delete posts. 🙂
Hi Wil. I wasn’t sure where to post this, so posting it here with your latest blog entry.
My name is Dan Wegiel. Over the past year, I’ve been working with Ben Devere (the son of Joe Dever, the author of the Lone Wolf gamebook series) to design and launch an asymmetrical strategy board game in the Lone Wolf universe. The game is an homage to the Lone Wolf series, allowing players to relive – and rewrite – the Lone Wolf saga, similar to the experiences Star Wars: Rebellion or War of the Ring offer for those worlds.
We just launched it on Gamefound last week and successfully funded it.
I know you are a Lone Wolf and board game fan. I would be honored if you could help raise awareness of the game people who share your (and our 🙂 ) interests. Whether or not you are able to do that, I would be thrilled to send you a copy of the game when it is produced early next year.
If nothing else, I just find it cool that creating a Lone Wolf game has given me an occasion to reach out to you and bring together two worlds that inspired me as a kid. I have been a lifelong fan of Lone Wolf and Star Trek and have always been a fan of yours, from ST:TNG through all of your Ready Room episodes (wish those were still going 🙂 ).
Here is a link to the Gamefound page if you want to check it out.
https://gamefound.com/en/projects/holmgard-games/lone-wolf-vengeance-of-the-kai
Thanks,
Dan
I got your email. I’m a huge fan of Lone Wolf, and I’d love to check this out.
Awesome! Thanks, Wil! Really appreciate it!
Please let us know what you think.
Hi Wil. Hope you had a chance to check out the game. Please let us know what you thought.
I cook most of the time in my house, at least partly in self defense. Much as I love my husband, I have to say that cooking is just not his forte.
Salt & I have a peculiar relationship. I don’t like much in my food. When I was learning to cook, my family was dealing with my dad’s diagnosis with cardiac issues, so we were on a low-salt low-fat diet. That’s the way I learned to cook everything. Most commercial soups have a boatload of salt in them, and they make me gag. Luckily for me, my grandmother taught me how to take either fresh or roasted poultry and turn it into stock, which I’ve been doing ever since, some 50+ years now.
I make stock all the time, and either freeze it or pressure-can it so I have a good supply on hand all the time. Even if I’m not making soup, I use a little stock or broth in main dishes and sauces all the time. Ironically, my husband is also a heart patient (first heart attack at age 39), so it’s a darned good thing I know how to cook in a way that best supports his health.
This recipe sounds incredible. Also those coasters are incredible and I want
I am a vegetarian, and even I found this interesting! When you write about something you enjoyed learning, enjoyed doing, enjoyed eating, and enjoyed sharing, I can enjoy all that enjoyment!
My mother told me that if my great grandfather had some not-so-great chicken soup, he would say “This tastes like a chicken just walked through it!”
That’s amazing! The trick to matzoh balls is that you roll them about a little less than half the size you expect them to come out when cooked. Once my stepdad rolled them slightly bigger than golf balls and they swelled to the size of good sized navel orange hahah!
That looks delicious Wil! When I make matzoh balls, I add some dried herbs like dill and chive into the mix that I think gives them even better flavor. I also simmer the matzoh balls in plain water for about 25 minutes to cook them. Then I add them to the soup. That way, they don’t absorb all the broth from the soup. I use a melon ball scoop to form the balls–a 1.5″ ball will end of being about 2.5″ when cooked.
I’ve never made matzo balls before, but I’m taking note of adding herbs to them because that sounds so good!
This looks so yummy I can’t stand it! 🥰
That looks absolutely delicious!
Well done on taking the plunge and trusting in your ability to season the soup correctly.
My mother using the leftovers from a roast chicken to make the best soup. She strips the carcass, throws that with some vegetables, seasonings, and a stock cube or two into her soup maker (it’s like a big kettle with a mixer built into the lid) and sets it off. There’s no fixed recipe so it’s never exactly the same, but it’s consistently delicious.
Looks absolutely yummy!