Name: Matzo Ball Soup
Yield: Serves 6
Cuisine: India
Ingredients: ¼ teaspoon cumin seeds; ¼ teaspoon black or yellow mustard seeds; 2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh cilantro leaves and tender stems for garnishing; 1 teaspoon coarse kosher or sea salt; ½ teaspoon coarse kosher or sea salt; ½ cup matzo meal; 2 tablespoons canola oil; 2 extra-large or jumbo eggs, slightly beaten; ¼ teaspoon fennel seeds; 1 dried red Thai or cayenne chile, stem removed; 2 to 4 fresh green Thai, cayenne, or serrano chiles, to taste, stems removed, cut in half lengthwise (do not remove the seeds); 2 large carrots, peeled, ends trimmed, cut crosswise into 1-inch-thick pieces; 8 cups low-sodium chicken (or vegetable) stock; 1 large parsnip, peeled, ends trimmed, quartered; 4 medium-size to large ribs celery, ends trimmed, cut into ½-inch-thick pieces; 1 medium-size red onion, finely chopped; ½ teaspoon ground turmeric

Preparation info

Serves
6

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

660 Curries

By Raghavan Iyer

Published 2008

About

For my dear friend Jeff Mandel, a successful and compassionate internist (did I mention that he is handsome and single, ladies?), nothing evokes a stronger childhood memory of family, comfort, ritual, and tradition (including the search for the afikomen—the hidden matzo) than a bowl of matzo ball soup at the yearly Passover meal. The first time I sampled his classic version was at his house, at my first Passover, when his boisterous sister’s outburst, “My, Jeff, your