Thursday, November 15, 2007

Babys First Failure

I've finally done it. I took a perfectly good recipe and completely fucked it up.

Tuesday night, I attempted to make Vegan Matzo Balls for my family's Friday night soup.

As far as I know, I did everything according to the instructions. I did all the blending and pureeing in a blender. I did all the mixing with a silicon spatula. I covered my bowl with saran wrap and let it refrigerate for an hour. I put all the balls on a parchment-covered cutting board and dropped them in one by one using a slotted spoon (when doing the non-vegan balls, we just use our hands, not a blender, maybe a fork for the initial mixing, the batter just sits out at room temperature for twenty minutes to firm up and we drop the balls into the boiling water by hand as we make them). The only way I varied from the instructions was to make them a bit larger than written.

Unfortunately, the photos don't tell you where I goofed:



The whole ball-making process went fine. They even floated up to the top of the pot when I removed the lid, then sank again just like the VWAV said they would, which I thought was a good sign. Yet when it came time to take them out of the water, they were seriously mushy. About half were just sludge. This is especially bad since, as my grandmother would say, in my family "We like our balls big and hard" (to be 81 and have the sense of humor of a thirteen-year-old boy!).

I'm not giving up, though. According to the Internet, this recipe has worked for people other than Isa, so I will try again. I think I'll add a bit of extra matzo meal and leave the mix in the fridge overnight instead of for an hour, though.



2 comments:

Laura said...

I haven't tried that recipe yet (shocking, I know...you'd think the person with a blog named Jewish Vegan would have tried that recipe first), but in every picture I've seen of the matzah balls, they've been really small....much smaller than non-vegan matzah balls. I think that for some reason, they work better that way.

Seitan Said Dance said...

That's a good point, thanks. I'll definitely make them smaller next time I try.