Just add chicken soup..

Mixing it up doesn't always go as planned for me. My friend, Chelsea, at work shared with me her dad's matzo ball recipe. We were talking about chicken soup and a version of matzo balls my great-grandma used to make.

Here's her dad's recipe

• 1 muffin tin
• 2-3 eggs
• salt & pepper
• dried onion or onion granules
• Olive Oil or chicken fat
• 1 cup matzo farfel

Soak matzo farfel in warm water for approximately 20 seconds, then drain thoroughly in a sieve. Add 2-3 eggs and season with salt, pepper and onion powder. Add more soaked farfel if needed; it should be consistency a bit thicker than pancake batter. 

Put a few drops of oil in each cupcake tin; fill 3/4 full with matzo mixture. Bake at 375 until golden brown, about 25-30 minutes. The outside of the cupcakes should be slightly crispy and the inside soft.

Tip: place a cookie sheet on the rack just below the muffin tin to prevent oil from spilling over onto oven 'floor.'

When I asked Chelsea for her dad's permission to post his recipe here, it resulted in their having a conversion on their family history of making these. Her dad learned to make matzo farfel cupcakes from his Aunt Mary. However, he is guessing that since Mary wasn't Jewish (she was a nice Oklahoma farm girl), Mary probably learned how to make them from her mother-in-law (her father's grandmother). So the woman who likely brought the recipe to America was Chelsea's great-grandmother, Tillie. She was from the Ukraine or possibly Poland which was all Russia at the time. Tillie taught Chelsea's dad how to make chicken soup and then dip the cupcakes in.

Chelsea said her dad used to use rendered chicken fat to make these. When he was younger and made chicken soup, he would render the fat and use it in various recipes throughout the year, including the cupcakes. In her family, they call the rendered fat "schmaltz." It's a Yiddish word.

This recipe is so easy, I baked these before work. Warning: make sure you have your coffee 1st. I soaked the matzo farfel for 20 minutes instead of 20 seconds and mistakenly added oil to the mixture insted of just the muffin tins so my matzo balls looked more like matzo cookies - but they tasted delicious! I will definitely make these again and can't imagine my chicken soup without them now.

And I love that both of our matzo ball recipes came from great-grandmothers who grew-up in Russia! Bon Appetite.