FoodB

We got a bit of a backlog on things to post to this here site. It's funny to think that we now have too many things to post and about 5 months ago I was wondering if we had maybe hit the limit on recipes that I could post. The reason I thought there wouldn't be anymore recipes is because we had a pretty diverse rotation of different recipes and we weren't really trying anything new. Guess that was just a fad.

As I mentioned previously, when Jenn is planning a menu for the week now, she will now include at least one soup to the mix. Since she has started this, all of the soups that she has picked have been really good. This weeks soup is courtesy of Giada from Everyday Italian.

Italian Wedding Soup

Meatballs:
1 small onion, grated
1/3 cup chopped fresh Italian parsley
1 large egg
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon salt
1 slice fresh white bread, crust trimmed, bread torn into small pieces
1/2 cup grated Parmesan
8 ounces ground beef
8 ounces ground pork
Freshly ground black pepper

Soup:
12 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1 pound curly endive, coarsely chopped (1 pound of escarole would be a good substitution)
2 large eggs
2 tablespoon freshly grated Parmesan, plus extra for garnish
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1. To make the meatballs: Stir the first 6 ingredients in a large bowl to blend. Stir in the cheese, beef and pork. Using 1 1/2 teaspoons for each, shape the meat mixture into 1-inch-diameter meatballs. Place on a baking sheet.
2. To make the soup: Bring the broth to a boil in a large pot over medium-high heat. Add the meatballs and curly endive and simmer until the meatballs are cooked through and the curly endive is tender, about 8 minutes. Whisk the eggs and cheese in a medium bowl to blend. Stir the soup in a circular motion. Gradually drizzle the egg mixture into the moving broth, stirring gently with a fork to form thin stands of egg, about 1 minute. Season the soup to taste with salt and pepper.
3. Ladle the soup into bowls and serve. Finish soup with parmesan cheese if desired.

When I saw what ingredients that were going to be in the soup, I imagined that the soup would be a lot different than what the end result was. It was actually a lot better than I imagined it would be. We get our chicken broth canned and it has a pretty distinct flavor that is not always the best base for a soup. The great thing about this soup is that you add egg and parmesan cheese to the broth and it completely changes the flavor. Good stuff. I even mentioned to Jenn that back when we catered her sisters wedding, this would have been a perfect addition to the menu.