“Tastes just like chicken” is usually the reassuring rejoinder that precedes invitations to sample unfamiliar, icky foods like iguana, crocodile or snake.
But “tastes just like chicken” is a consommé to be devoutly wished for when one is talking about a Passover cook struggling to find good vegetarian alternatives for the soup component of matzah ball soup.
Part of the difficulty, of course, is that, for Jews, chicken soup is not merely chicken soup. Far greater than the sum of its avian and vegetable parts, it is an almost mythological elixir with the powers to comfort, nourish, sustain and heal.
“It’s Jewish penicillin,” acknowledges Yehuda Ferris, chief rabbi of Chabad of Berkeley. “It should be administered every four hours, preferably intravenously.”
For Jews of humble origins, it also represented the luxe life, a momentary departure from daily fare of beets, kasha, potatoes, cabbage and bread. “There’s an old Eastern European saying,” Ferris said, “if a poor Jew eats a chicken, one of them is sick.”
Given all this, vegetarian alternatives have to surmount an excessively high bar if they are going to serve as the vehicle for matzah balls at Passover. Crushing a few cubes of hydrolyzed vegetable protein, whatever that is, or reconstituting a packet of dyed, dried “chicken flavoring” doesn’t cut it. It has to be good. (This is not such a dilemma with the matzah balls themselves. The chicken shmaltz that typified matzah ball recipes of yesteryear can easily be prepared by substituting olive oil with no loss of flavor.)
Not only should it be good for goodness’s sake, going all out for the vegetarians among you is the essence of honoring your guests.
“The concept of hospitality trumps the chicken,” Ferris said. “If they have to eat vegan for their health, or because killing an animal disturbs them, or for any reason, then you have to go along with that.
“I can’t vouch that it tastes like chicken, but spiritually it works.”
The following four recipes may not satisfy the chicken farmers at your table, but they are sure to please everyone else — bubbes and carnivores included. As Menlo Park chef and sustainable agriculture advocate Jesse Ziff Cool likes to say, “From a good stock, anything can happen.”
For all these recipes, cook the matzah balls separately in water and add them to the vegetarian soup before serving.
Mollie Katzen’s Not-Chicken Soup
This recipe for a rich, golden soup is adapted from Berkeley resident Mollie Katzen’s book “Still Life With Menu.” As an alternative, the vegetables can be cut smaller and left in.
8 cups water
2 tsp. salt
1 8-inch parsnip, cut in chunks
2 large carrots, cut in chunks
8 to 10 (or more) cloves garlic, halved
2 medium onions, cut in chunks
2 stalks celery, coarsely chopped
a handful of mushrooms
1/2 tsp. turmeric
black pepper to taste
Combine ingredients in a large pot. Bring to a boil, lower heat and partially cover. Cook slowly for 1-2 hours.
Turn off heat and let soup cool to room temperature. Strain out and discard all the vegetables.
Heat gently just before serving.
Jesse Cool’s ‘Who Needs Chicken?’ Soup
Cool’s vegetable stocks start with the basics: generous amounts of onions, leeks, garlic, parsley, carrots and fresh herbs such as parsley, dill or thyme.
Cover with water and simmer for an hour or so, until all of the aromatic flavors are imparted in the water. “Then I begin adding a handful of ingredients to further the depth of flavor,” she said. She also adds dried shiitake mushrooms, light miso, onion skins, roasted parsnips or root vegetables to enhance the flavor.
“Adding matzah balls or additional — but not overcooked! — vegetables come later,” she said.
Rachel’s Mom’s Favorite Chicken-less Soup
This recipe originally was created by Steve Petusevsky, and first appeared in South Florida’s Sun-Sentinel on Dec. 9, 1998, in response to requests for a vegetarian “chicken” soup. The vegetables can be taken out before serving, or left in.
2 tsp. olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
1 each, chopped: celery, peeled carrots
1 cup each, peeled, diced: sweet potatoes, parsnips
1-inch piece peeled, minced ginger root
2 cloves garlic, minced
8 cups water or vegetable broth
3 sprigs fresh thyme
2 bay leaves
1/2 cup minced fresh dill
1 tsp. kosher salt
1 tsp. freshly ground pepper
Heat oil in large saucepan or Dutch oven. Add onions, celery, carrots, sweet potatoes, parsnips, ginger and garlic until lightly browned, about 2 minutes.
Add water or broth, bay leaves and thyme. Heat to boil; reduce heat, and simmer until vegetables are tender, about 45 minutes. Remove from heat and add dill, salt and pepper.
Note: It is important for this soup to simmer — that means that bubbles barely break the surface of the broth — so the liquid stays at 185 degrees. This will ensure a crystal-clear broth. You may use water or vegetable broth for the liquid, or a combination of both.
Miriam Ferris’s Fast-Track Chicken-Free Soup
Sometimes, admits Miriam Ferris, wife of Rabbi Yehuda Ferris, you don’t learn until the last minute that your cousin-twice-removed’s niece is vegan. That’s when her recipe for fast vegan soup can come in handy.
Ferris starts with canned chicken-less broth, which “has a nice flavor already,” she says, and “jazzes it up” with onions, parsley, carrots, parsnips and sweet potatoes.