Stepping Out

On the holiday table

Savor springtime traditions with family and friends

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Families throughout the area are preparing celebrate the spring rituals of Passover and Easter next weekend. These feasts are a time to share in age-old traditions while creating new ones with your loved ones .
Holiday meals are an occasion to explore your family’s heritage and adapt it for new generations. Try supplementing those tried-and-true recipes passed down from generation to generation with recipes that offer a new twist to your holiday menu.

Grandma’s Chicken Soup
1 large whole chicken
Water
4 carrots, peeled
3 stalks celery, peeled
1 medium parsnip, peeled
1 large onion, left whole but peeled
Small bunch of fresh dill
Salt and pepper to taste

Wash the chicken inside and out and place it in a soup pot. Pour enough water in the pot to cover the chicken by 1-inch.
Bring the liquid to a boil, lower the heat, and for the next 15 minutes or so, remove any scum that rises to the surface. Add the carrots, celery, parsnip, onion, dill, salt and pepper.
Cover the pan partially and simmer the soup for 2-1/2 hours or until the chicken meat is very soft when pierced with the tip of a sharp knife. Pour the soup through a strainer or colander into a large bowl or a second pot. Set the chicken and vegetables aside. Remove the fat from the surface of the liquid with a spoon or fat-skimming tool.
For best results, refrigerate the strained soup; when it is cold, the fat will rise to the surface and harden and you can scoop it off. (Refrigerate the vegetables and the chicken separately.) Serve the soup plain or with the vegetables (cut them up) and chicken.

Perfect Matzo Balls
2 eggs slightly beaten
2 tablespoons oil or chicken fat
2 tablespoons soup stock or water
1/2 cup matzo meal
1 teaspoon salt

Beat eggs slightly with fork. Add other ingredients, except matzo meal, and mix. Add matzo meal gradually until thick. Stir. Refrigerate for 20 minutes in covered bowl.
Wet hands and form into balls. Drop into bubbling chicken soup or into a large wide pot into which 1 quart water seasoned with 1 tablespoon salt has been added and has come to a boil. Cook for 30 minutes. Yields 4 balls per each 1/4 cup of matzo meal.

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