Chicken Soup For The Soul Food

Corn Ball and Chicken Soup

| “Matzo”-Style Cornmeal Dumplings in Chicken Broth with Pulled Chicken, Collard Greens, and Black-Eyed Peas

AS WE NOW EXIST IN

a culture where we live less as people and more as online personalities, I am made evermore aware of what my friends are doing not by conversation, but by posts, Tweets, and uploaded photos. And among

my

friends, those photos are mostly of children, cats, inspirational sayings or clever memes, and—lucky for me—lots and lots of food.

So, with this Passover week leading into Easter, many of my skilled Jewish fellow epicures have been showcasing some inviting images of matzo ball soup that they made from scratch. I've enjoyed many in my life, yet have never made one myself.

And maybe as a safeguard, instead of trying to make an authentic traditional matzo ball soup, I decided to add a little soul food twist to the dish (and doesn't every culture have their own version of "soul food"?) by substituting cornmeal for matzo meal, using rendered fat instead of rendered chicken fat (often called "shmaltz), and replacing carrots and celery with collard green and black-eyed peas.

I employed the commonly used preparation for the now corn balls, even separating the egg yolks from the whites, mixing the yolks with the bacon fat, chicken stock, salt, pepper, a pinch of both garlic and onion powder, and finely chopped fresh tarragon. I then whisked the egg whites to stiff peaks and folded them into the mix before chilling in the refrigerator for a couple of hours.

Of course I would have chicken in my corn ball soup, so I dropped some chicken legs in a large pan of both water and chicken stock, several washed, chopped leaves of collard greens, a full sprig of tarragon, salt, and whole peppercorns. I brought the pot to a boil before turning it down to a simmer and covering for an hour.

Corn Ball Soup with Chicken

While the corn ball mix set in the fridge, the chicken cooked through long enough to still have juicy meat, still firm with being stringy, and easily separating from the bone with a spoon. With the liquid still simmering, I removed the mix from the fridge, and after coating my hands with olive oil and cold water, was able to roll hacky sack-sized balls and delicately drop them in the pot. It was then that I also added the pre-soaked black-eyed peas.

I quickly learned that one should not try to move the balls right after they've been put in simmering water, as they will immediately disintegrate into tiny wet crumbs. I was able to salvage a majority of the bunch, though, rising from the bottom of the pot to the top on their own.

Once in a bowl—ladeled with the simmered broth, joined by pulled chicken, collard greens, and black-eyed peas—the time, effort, trial and error involved in making these corn balls proved to be very much worth the effort.

Corn Ball Soup with Chicken

Corn Ball Soup

Corn Ball Soup with Chicken

First things first: success with the corn balls! Although they possessed the grittier texture you expect from cornmeal, the consistency of the ball itself matched that of a properly cooked matzo ball, which maintained its structural integrity regardless of hot broth or being sliced into with a spoon. The broth—made with chicken legs and their sublimely ideal combination of white and dark meat as well as skin—was deeply aromatic and flavorful and absorbed well into the corn ball.

The pulled chicken provided wonderful meaty bite to each spoon, while the collard greens, uniquely keeping its leafy texture after slow-cooking, supplied ust enough earthy bitterness to be complimented by the sweet herbaceousness of the tarragon, and the toothsome nuttiness of the black-eye peas.

Of course, I'll be posting this article and/or these pictures on my Facebook page, as well as the PHUDE-nyc page, on Twitter, Foursquare, and even Flickr (which I'm surprised I still use be still get a large percentage of my traffic from). How else would I let my friends know what i've been up to. And although I think it's great that I reconnect with so many friends, so much family, so much of my history online, it's in the kitchen where I often get to reconnect with myself. To me, that'll always be good for the soul.

Bun Apple Tea!

KACnyc

Corn Ball and Chicken Soup

| “Matzo”-Style Cornmeal Dumplings in Chicken Broth with Pulled Chicken, Collard Greens, and Black-Eyed Peas