I am determined to make some of this soup this weekend, but looking at recipes on the internet has left me confused. Ground beef boiled in chicken broth? Yuck! I’ve only had the canned version, and I’m pretty sure the meatballs in that are made from ground pork. The recipes look pretty basic, too. I was somehow expecting more to it than tossing meatballs and a dark, leafy green in a pot, maybe with eggs.
Does anyone have a surefire wedding soup recipe? I like spinach better than the curly endive that wacky ol’ Giada Laurentis recommends.
Despite of the most obscure questions being answered repeatedly in the past, I believe this is the first time the Teeming Millions have failed me. It is truly a sad, sad day.
This is my recipe. I mean, not MINE, but the one I use. It’s pretty damn freaking awesome.
It is, at heart, a very simple soup. Don’t try to get all fancified with it - this is peasant food. The smallest scraps of beef (yes, BEEF! Pork will be way too greasy and piggy, although I’ve used ground turkey and it’s nearly as good as beef) filled with breadcrumbs from leftover stale bread, the greens from the home garden all stretched to fill hungry bellies with chicken stock…
The worst thing about this soup is making all the stupid teeny tiny meatballs. I recommend the small end of a melon baller as a disher. Don’t bother browning them - they’ll stay rounder if you simmer them from raw, and you don’t need the fond for this recipe anyway.
Well, hell. The book I thought it was in doesn’t have it, which means that I must have gotten it off allrecipes.com or someplace, which means that my copy is buried somewhere. You could try to find one there, or else later today I’ll dig through the pile and see if I can find it.
1 pound extra-lean ground beef
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup dried bread crumbs
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
1 teaspoon dried basil
3 tablespoons minced onion
2 1/2 quarts chicken broth
2 cups spinach - packed, rinsed and thinly sliced
1 cup seashell pasta
3/4 cup diced carrots
Directions
1 In a medium bowl, combine the beef, egg, bread crumbs, cheese, basil and onion. Shape mixture into 3/4-inch balls and set aside.
2 In a large stockpot heat chicken broth to boiling; stir in the spinach, pasta, carrot and meatballs. Return to boil; reduce heat to medium. Cook, stirring frequently, at a slow boil for 10 minutes or until pasta is al dente. Serve hot with Parmesan cheese sprinkled on top.