Soup season is upon us.
After weeks of extra summer, New York finally had a brief bit of chilly weather. So I decided it was time to start making soup again.
I am being intentionally misleading. The above photo is the borscht I made last month. It was the the night of Jason Diamond’s book launch of of Kaplan’s Plot, which was actually a total coincidence. Since he served everyone those delicious Chicago-style hot dogs, it seemed appropriate to write about those instead of the soup I lovingly crafted from a pair of beets.
I had been meaning to make a pot of borscht since last winter, probably ever since Jason Diamond published this piece about Borscht changing your life. but I never got around to it. Then summer rolled in and it was too hot for soup, especially a hearty beet soup thick with carrots and beets.
September wasn’t really cold enough for soup. Cool weather finally settled in this weekend, and a big Nor’easter was threatening the city. It was time to get the soup group back together.
I was in the grocery store looking at an enormous carrot when I decided to make a soup. I settled on Italian Wedding Soup typically made in the United States with chicken meatballs.
Despite the name, Italian Wedding Soup doesn’t actually have anything to do with matrimony in Italy. The “wedding” is the marriage of meat and bitter greens. It’s most often associated with springtime, especially around Easter, and other feasts in the spring.
In the early days of American Thanksgiving, Italian American immigrants often served Italian Wedding Soup. By often, I mean multiple sources have cited anecdotal evidence, or explained it as their family’s tradition. It wasn’t just a regional traditional either. As turkey became a mainstream Thanksgiving must-have, wedding soup faded from some tables.
And although Italians don’t historically serve wedding soup at weddings, it is fairly common at banquet halls, especially in New Jersey. I’ve been to at least three weddings in New Jersey where Italian Wedding Soup was served, and at least two of those did not involve anyone who was Italian American.
I grew up eating Chickarina, a canned soup from the Progresso that takes inspiration from wedding soup. Progresso also produces an actual wedding soup, which is slightly different than the Chickarina. The chickarina lacks the bitter greens, which makes it more like an Italian singles soup rather than a wedding soup. That is a dad joke.
I actually wrote out the recipe for Italian Wedding Soup last year. The secret in these photos is that I actually made those meatballs from pork rather than chicken, but this time I wanted to do the soup properly.
All weekend, I kept procrastinating. Then, just as the Nor’easter arrived, I walked over the big grocery store for the last of the ingredients. Cooking up the soup didn’t take very long, and much to our surprise, our four-year-old wanted to eat meatballs of his own. I was shocked since the meatballs were chicken and not covered in tomato sauce.
Chicken Meatballs for Italian Wedding Soup
Ingredients
1 lb ground chicken
two cloves garlic
1 shallot
1 cup plain breadcrumbs
1/2 cup finely grated Romano cheese
1 egg
Instructions
Combine the ingredients
Salt and pepper
Mix thoroughly by hand
Make smallish meatballs by rolling the meat in your hand
Cook in soup for about 10 minutes before serving
To make the soup, follow the recipe here.
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