<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<recipeml version="0.5">
  <recipe>
    <head>
      <title>"Official" Jewish Mother Chicken Soup</title>
      <categories>
        <cat>None</cat></categories>
      <yield>1</yield></head>
    <ingredients>
      <ing-div>
        <title/>
        <ing>
          <amt>
            <qty>1</qty>
            <unit/></amt>
          <item>Kosher chicken cut into large hunks (I have never tried this with a non-kosher chicken, so I have no idea how soup from one would taste. However, it would taste somewhat different.)</item></ing>
        <ing>
          <amt>
            <qty/>
            <unit/></amt>
          <item>Several (3 to 6) large sharp white onions, cut or sliced.</item></ing>
        <ing>
          <amt>
            <qty>1</qty>
            <unit/></amt>
          <item>Carrots, chopped (optional) (up to 2)</item></ing>
        <ing>
          <amt>
            <qty/>
            <unit/></amt>
          <item>Enough water to cover the chicken</item></ing>
        <ing>
          <amt>
            <qty/>
            <unit/></amt>
          <item>Salt and pepper to taste</item></ing></ing-div>
      <ing-div>
        <title>MATZOH BALLS</title>
        <ing>
          <amt>
            <qty>2</qty>
            <unit>tablespoons</unit></amt>
          <item>Melted chicken fat or oil, approx (I think it's better if you use the fat from the soup.)</item></ing>
        <ing>
          <amt>
            <qty>2</qty>
            <unit>large</unit></amt>
          <item>Eggs, slightly beaten</item></ing>
        <ing>
          <amt>
            <qty>1</qty>
            <unit>teaspoon</unit></amt>
          <item>Salt, about</item></ing>
        <ing>
          <amt>
            <qty>2</qty>
            <unit>tablespoons</unit></amt>
          <item>Soup, about (not hot enough to cook the beaten eggs in the mixture--use the soup after it's been cooled in the fridge) or water (It tastes better if you use the soup)</item></ing>
        <ing>
          <amt>
            <qty>1/2</qty>
            <unit>cups</unit></amt>
          <item>Matzoh meal, about</item></ing></ing-div></ingredients>
    <directions>
      <step>    1) Place the chicken, onions, and carrots in a large stock pot.
    2) Put the water into another pot.
    3) Boil the water and pour it over the chicken, onions, and carrots.
  Make sure you put in just enough to cover the chicken and veggies in the
  pot; if you put in any more, the soup will be watery unless you boil off
  the excess water, which takes a while.)
    4) Loosely cover or partially cover the stock pot and simmer for several
  hours--the longer, the better, usually.
    5) Strain soup, pouring the liquid portion into a large pot.
    6) Place pot with liquid in the fridge until it cools.
    7) Take rendered chicken fat off the surface of the cooled soup. Reserve
  the fat. (An alternate way to separate the fat from the soup is to pour
  the soup into a measuring cup that has a spout at the bottom rather than
  at the top. This way, you can pour off the soup from the bottom of the
  measuring cup and leave the fat.)
    8) Reheat soup to a boil and throw in matzoh balls and, if you like,
  onion, carrot,and/or chicken bits from earlier stages in making this soup.
    9) Cook matzoh balls, add salt and pepper, and serve.
    MATZOH BALLS:
    1) Blend fat and eggs together.
    2) Add matzoh meal and salt, blend well.
    3) Add soup stock and mix until uniform.
    4) Cover mixing bowl and put it in the fridge for about 15-30 minutes.
  (The longer you leave the matzoh ball mixture in the fridge, the fluffier
  the matzoh balls turn out. My mom makes them fluffy, but some people like
  them dense.)
    5) Make mixture into balls and drop them into boiling soup.(I don't
  think you need to make the mixture into balls; the matzoh balls taste just
  fine if you simply drop the mixture into the soup by spoonfuls.)
    6) Boil for a few minutes--longer for a mixture that makes dense balls,
  esp. if you've made it into large balls, shorter if you're using a mixture
  that makes fluffier balls.)
    What to do with soup leftovers: If you've made a good chicken soup,
  you've boiled the chicken for a while, and the solid chicken now tastes
  like chewy nothing. Instead of throwing it all away, here's what we used
  to do with the remaining chicken:
    Curry Chicken with Coconut Raisin Rice: Cook some rice the way you
  ordinarily would, but add some unsweetened shredded coconut and raisins to
  the water when you go to boil the rice. Shred the chicken. It should fall
  apart easily. Heat a little vegetable oil in the bottom of a large frying
  pan. When the oil is hot, throw in some turmeric, some cumin seeds--either
  ground or whole--,some caraway seeds, and some sliced onion. Feel free to
  go a little heavy on the onion and spices; remember, you're going to be
  eating this with rice, and the chicken has no strong flavor of its own. If
  you don't have any of these particular spices on hand, just use sliced
  onion and curry powder. It'll still be OK.
    When the onion is translucent, add the shredded chicken and fry in the
  frying pan. Make sure to stir frequently; this stuff cooks quickly, since
  the chicken is already cooked. Add ground red pepper and stir through.
    Serve curried chicken with raisin coconut rice. This also tastes very
  good cold.
    Posted to Recipe Archive - 10 November 96
    Date: Sun, 10 Nov 96 12:23:20 EST
    submitted by: silverman.30@osu.edu
 
</step></directions></recipe></recipeml>
