The Simplest Matzo Ball Soup With a Hidden Secret.

It's perfect for Pesach. A comforting, delicious Jewish food and I promise you it will make you feel better. Matzah bowl soup. I like this a lot. Hey everybody, welcome to the Lev HaOlam kitchen right here in Israel. I'm Rifki and I'm joined today by Chef David. David, welcome. Matzah bowl soup is going to be on thousands and thousands of Israeli tables for Passover because it's quintessential amazing Passover dish. So I thought it would be fun to invite David to help us prepare it and teach us what we need to know about making matzah bowl soup. It's perfect for Pesach because of course long ago our ancestors were in Egypt performing back-breaking labor under the harsh hand of the paro. And David that gets me so much in the mood now to make matzah bowl soup and I've actually I've eaten it many times but I've never actually made matzah balls myself. I made it a couple of times. It's a very essential, okay, traditional dish like for the Passover classic. It's like a turkey for some reason. Yeah, that's true. Okay, so what do we need? To make matzah balls it's very easy. We need the matzah flour, eggs, salt and oil. We will use olive oil. You can use any vegetable oil. Amazing and I got just prepared ready to go matzah ball flour and you can get this I think in almost any grocery store that carries kosher products. And just like blended matzah. So first we will start with the eggs. We put inside eggs. We have a big eggs. These are big eggs. They actually come from the Moshav that I live on. We have chicken coops there so they're fresh from the farm. So it's big eggs. I think one is enough. It's small, I think two. One bag is approximately 60 gram of the flour and we need to put olive oil around 50 milliliters for the 60 gram. We will use two so we will use about 120 gram. And we will put a recipe into the description for you so you don't have to worry about remembering everything that Chef David is showing us now. You can see the recipe afterwards. Okay, I put the olive oil inside the eggs. Always Israeli salt from 424 salt down by the Dead Sea. Can't do it without. Mix it. Don't forget, subscribe to our channel. Okay and now we will add our matzah flour inside. Mix it together. I guess this is the part, this is the reason why I never made matzah balls before. I was always sort of intimidated like it seemed complicated and now I feel ridiculous because it actually is looking pretty simple and easy to do. Although I would always have matzah ball soup, my friend Samantha, my friend Valerie make amazing matzah ball soup. So I always was taken care of. And I see David you wanted to be like a little bit sort of firm because you're going to roll it into balls. When we combine we can use our hands. So you have to tell us in your family, do you call these knedlach or do you call them matzah balls? I see it's good. It's not too not too sticky but still you can form. Right. And my friends, those of you are watching, if you've made matzah ball soup before and you have favorite tips and tricks, please share them in the comments so that we can all learn from one another. I mean I think that's the nice part about making the connection with us here in Israel is that also we like hearing from you too and getting your favorite tips. Now we can combine the balls. Remember that it will be almost double in the size. Oh they get bigger in the cup. So you don't need to make it too big. Yeah. Small like this. They look perfect David. They're so cute. So I guess the question is, and maybe you can answer this also in the comments, if you're one of those people that likes like a really big matzah ball in your soup or if you prefer more that's smaller. Which do you prefer David? I prefer smaller because I think they cook more. More good inside because when it's too big it's difficult to cook. But when you have the right size it's cooked perfectly inside and outside. Okay I have to try. I have to see if I can do it too. So just take it like this. Yeah and you open like open your arms. Okay so we're going for using just the inner palm and not too hard. I realized this straight away. Okay I feel like a champion. Actually and it makes a lot more than I thought it would. What? The mix. Yeah. Amazing. Okay. This amount about for four liter soup I think. Don't forget subscribe to our channel. So our matzah ball is ready. Let's put them aside and prepare our chicken soup. Chicken soup, matzah balls. This also is a great soup for Shabbat, for Friday nights. So you can also use this recipe in Passover just like we're doing now or you can also use it on Friday nights for a Shabbat meal. I think that's perfect. Yeah or you can use like noodles for the not Passover. Also go well with the chicken soup. Yeah. While we're here in the kitchen preparing delicious food to share with you so that you can create it in your kitchen, I thought this is the perfect moment to share with you a little bit more about Lev Olam and who we are and what we do. So in front of me, perfect for Passover, you see this year's Passover surprise box and as you can tell it was themed around Shira Shireen which is the song of songs which we read during this spring festival also called Chag Aviv. But when you look at this and you go whoa everything looks so beautiful, it's more than that. All of these products represent small family businesses, artists, artisans, farmers right here in Israel. And you know when you receive a Lev Olam box you actually become the energy, the spirit, the driving force in the Lev Olam mission to support small family businesses, artists, artisans, farmers right here in Israel. That is our mission. These incredible people that we work with, you know they don't want charity, they actually really want to stand on their own two feet. They want to support their families, they want to support their communities, they want to develop the land of Israel. And the only way they can do that is by having a market for their products. I know that you have seen the news lately and you understand that there is quite a force against Israel and there is the boycott movement. Many of these incredible products you will never find in shops or markets near your home because Israel is boycotted. These beautiful producers cannot sell their products overseas and so Lev Olam is an amazing option for people who love Israel, who want to support Israel and more than that want to take a stand and say I'm not part of the boycott, I'm part of supporting the Holy Land. It's a feeling that you can't even really put into words. So of course when you receive a Lev Olam surprise box you're getting incredible products, that's for sure. Artwork, dates from the Jordan Valley, snacks, organic cosmetics, jewelry like I'm wearing today. So many wonderful products but more than that you are giving some kind of level of soul support. When you're in your kitchen cooking with Israeli olive oil or Israeli spices you're actually sending back to Israel this incredible feeling of love and support and encouragement. My friends I cannot begin to tell you what it means to all of us, myself and our artisans, to know that we are not alone, that you're standing with us and it is exciting quite honestly to know that you receive these beautiful Israeli products in your home. So if you would like to know more about Lev HaOlam please click the link below. We also have a special offer for your first box when you subscribe and I would just be so thrilled to invite you into the Lev HaOlam family. So check it out, if you have questions you can leave those in the comments as well. So now we will cook our matzah balls. It will take about 15 minutes. We have our boiling water, just put a salt into the water. Yep and that's nice too because it raises the boiling temperature a little bit, it helps with the cooking. And just put down carefully our balls and we will cook it approximately 50 minutes that will be ready. And David I understand that you can also if you wanted to cook the matzah balls directly into a chicken stock. Yeah if you have already ready chicken stock you can boil the chicken stock add inside same 50 minutes and it's ready. This is kind of nice because it's you can make some and set them aside too into the refrigerator for a couple of days. Yeah you can add after to your soup or to different soups you prefer or even eat like this. Good to always good to have options. Okay now the magic. Let's wait. So our matzah ball is ready as you see it's not twice I think it's four times bigger. So take this in the vents to it will be three four times bigger than the original size. I think we should do we're going to take a vote and see which size you guys think are the best. Let's put a couple on here. This is a big one. We have a smaller one. Medium size. This is the smallest one. This yeah you saw it just the same time as me. All right my friends you're gonna need to take a look at our little matzah balls and you tell us which do you think is the perfect size the large the medium or the small. So we're waiting to hear. Which is your favorite David? I would think by the middle. You take the middle. I'm gonna take the middle as well. I'm gonna take the medium as well but let's see. So we got two for medium. I'm wildly impressed. I really honestly thought making matzah balls was such a complicated difficult thing and I see now actually it's really not. It just takes a bit of preparation that's it. I also think this is a fun item to make with your kids because while I was cooking it was just neat to see it getting bigger and bigger and bigger and I think that's something my children enjoy seeing that. Amazing. So my friends I'm excited now we're going to actually make a nice chicken soup to go with our matzah balls. So you can really approach this as two recipes. You can do just plain chicken soup if you want to or chicken soup with matzah balls. As many of you probably know this is Jewish penicillum. If you get sick your Jewish mama is going to bring you some chicken soup and I promise you it will make you feel better. Yeah? A hundred percent. It's guaranteed. So okay David step us through making the chicken soup. Yes yesterday we already cooked the chicken and shrink it. It's already ready. We will use the onion, celery and carrot and we will use the powder stock but you can use stock wherever you want or prepare it before. We just make a quicker version. Perfect all right. Let's cut now our onion. Cut it by half. Peel it. I think we will use only half. Yeah. It's enough. So let's cut it. Let me dice it like this. David do you have any tricks for onions making you cry? Not really to put glasses. Actually it's healthy. I did read that if you put your onions in the fridge first it's supposed to help. I don't know that it does but I do put my onions in the fridge just in case it works. So let us know if you have any great tips for that. Let's clean our celery from the leaves. Okay. And cut it like this. Perfect. Carrots also by half. Again this is the I think the most simple way to make a chicken soup. So if you you know because sometimes you come home from work or you just don't have a lot of time and you want to do something very quick very easy but also very delicious. I don't think it gets easier than that David. Yes. Let's put one garlic also. Excellent. Just crush it cut it like this. Okay we're ready. All right let's put it together. Amazing. So our water is boiling now we will add our stock powder inside. Very good. Then mix it. Do you always use stock powder David or do you sometimes make stock with the chicken bones? I make stock it's not too difficult to make just need time. Yeah exactly. You can also buy like a liquid stock. Yeah. It's also work well. So it's really whatever is easiest for you what you can manage. I like using my crock pot to make stock but as you said it takes a bit of time but I do like it once I've put everything in there I can just turn it on and leave it which is good. Okay it's boiling. Okay. Now let's add our vegetables we cut before inside. Beautiful. Yeah and let's cook it about also 15 minutes and not too soft but cooked well. Okay great. And I just got the scent smells good. Yeah and chicken we will add at the end that is not overcooked just need a few minutes just to warm. Great. So our vegetables almost cooked and about two three minutes till the end we'll add our shredded chicken. Perfect. So this is enough mix it. Very good oh that looks so nice. Let it cook like two three minutes more and after we are ready to serve. It's nice and this is nice too because you can leave it on the flame for like a low flame to keep warm like if you make it before for your Friday night meal make this in the afternoon let it sit on the blech and there you go. It looks good David. So our soup is ready here we have prepared our plates with cooked before matzo balls. I already cut some parsley for garnishing and the lemon is my secret ingredient I like to put lemon after it's a secret from me. I love it thank you. Let's pour our soup into the plate with the balls just like this second one yeah now let's put a little bit parsley or you can use green you like it can be dill also I think dill is nice I like it. Parsley above and my secret just a splash of the lemon here and here. Thank you for sharing your secret ingredient with us now of course the fun part is the tasting. So moment of truth. This is the moment of truth for Teovan. Let's taste. I'm going straight for the matzo ball because I really want to check this guy out. So soft. Yeah and it's not too hot right? Oh my gosh David it's really good. I like this a lot. The soup flavor is really good too. I have to say I was like a little bit um maybe we're not going to get such a rich flavor because you know we cook this quickly but it's delicious. Yeah I just think you know when you're a busy person to have something that's so comforting but it's quick and it's easy it's like the ideal combination it's like real hearty food. Matzo balls is perfect for this. My friends if you've not made matzo balls before like me don't be afraid they're really delicious they're easy the soup itself tastes amazing and of course served as we always do in Lev Olam surprise box ceramic bowls so some of you may even have this ceramic bowl at your house and it just goes to show these beautiful gifts that you get in your box they're very practical too you can use them as part of your day-to-day life not to mention the spices and the oils and all of that so this is absolutely divine. David thank you for teaching us such a simple easy nutritious and truthfully this is comfort food a comforting delicious Jewish food and this is of course perfect for your Pesach so I hope that you make it for your Pesach table and don't forget to like and subscribe to the channel let us know what you'd like to see next and if you're not a member of Lev Olam check it out you'll love it. David thank you. Thank you and Chag Sameach and V'tehavon see you bye-bye bye