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Short Summary
Main recommendation: Make Italian wedding soup with homemade sautéed-onion-and-garlic meatballs simmered in chicken broth, with orzo and spinach added at the end. Jamie Geller presents it as a quick kosher recipe from her book Quick and Kosher Meals in Minutes. The key techniques are pre-heating the pan, freezing the meatballs briefly, and avoiding overmixing.
Key Points
- Sauté the onions and garlic before adding them to the meatballs, then let them cool so they don't cook the egg or stiffen the mixture.
- Freezing the shaped meatballs for about 15 minutes helps them hold their shape when dropped into boiling broth.
- Mix the meatball ingredients gently; overmixing makes the meatballs tough.
- In a kosher kitchen, herbs and vegetables must be carefully checked for infestation, so Geller uses dried parsley as a shortcut instead of fresh pre-checked parsley.
- Geller says a damp paper towel under a plastic cutting board keeps it from sliding while you cut.
Details Worth Noting
- Concrete instructions:
- Place a damp paper towel under the cutting board to stop it sliding.
- Trim the onion with the stem end left intact, dice it finely, then smash and mince the garlic.
- Heat the pan on medium to high with nothing in it, then add about 1 tablespoon olive oil and the onions. Sauté 3 to 4 minutes, add the garlic, and cook 1 to 2 more minutes until softened and starting to turn golden. Let them cool.
- Meatball mixture: 1/4 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley (or about 1 1/2 teaspoons dried, a 3:1 fresh-to-dried ratio), unseasoned plain breadcrumbs, about 1 teaspoon kosher salt, freshly cracked black pepper, 1 beaten egg, and the cooled onions and garlic. Mix gently.
- Shape into meatballs about 1/2 to 1 inch in size, place in a greased pan that fits in your freezer, and freeze about 15 minutes.
- Use two 32-ounce boxes of chicken broth. Bring to a boil, lower the semi-frozen meatballs in one at a time.
- Add about 1/2 cup orzo, reduce to a simmer, and cook about 20 minutes uncovered.
- Add spinach during the last minute or two, then serve.
- The recipe is from Geller's book Quick and Kosher Meals in Minutes.
Bottom Line
Italian wedding soup here is a fairly simple build: sauté the aromatics, form and briefly freeze the meatballs, then simmer them in broth with orzo and spinach. Its kosher-specific shortcut is using dried parsley in place of fresh herbs that need inspection.
