I know this is too late for the holiday, but it nags at me…
Go down to the store and buy, examine, shoplift, whatever, a box of matzoh ball mix. Matzoh is supposed to be unleavened bread, right? Well, check the instructions: Let stand for twenty minutes. LET STAND FOR TWENTY MINUTES. After that, it ain’t freakin’ matzoh anymore, is it? It’s leavened dough, right? How does the stuff continue to be matzoh?
Please explain this.
It’s matzoh because it’s made from matzoh. Whether it’s kosher for Passover after it stands is a separate issue.
Matzoh doesn’t have to be kosher for Passover.
It’s matzoh because it’s made from matzoh. Whether it’s kosher for Passover after it stands is a separate issue.
Matzoh doesn’t have to be kosher for Passover. You can find certain varieties that are not. I remember one passover when someone tried to explain to the gentile stock clerk at Grand Union that the matzoh they were selling wasn’t kosher for Passover.
No. Once the matzoh has been baked, it can no longer become leavened. Hence, you can put matzoh in your soup on Passover without a problem.
As an aside to the above: there are those who refrain from doing so, because they are afraid there may be some * unbaked * dough that will leaven when brought in contact with water.
Zev Steinhardt
We’ll assume that the matzoh mix is kosher for Passover (if it is purported to be, and is not, there’s a problem with the hashgakhah, but that’s another question).
The kosher l’Pesah matzoh mix does not contain raw flour (which can become leavened), but rather previously baked unleavened bread which is finely ground (“matzoh meal”). This previously baked meal cannot become hametz.
Note that the rules are different depending on when a product is purchased (a product containing any hametz cannot be purchased during Passover; whereas in a product that is purchased before Passover, hametz is subject to the ordinary rules of nullification).
As RealityChuck points out, calling a product “matzoh” is not an assertion that contains no hametz, or, in fact, that it is kosher at all.
I always understood it to be that the matzah was unleavened in general because no yeast was involved and that the standing for 20 minutes part to which you refer doesn’t count. The expansion of the matzo balls by their uptake of broth doesn’t count as ‘rising’ per se as you see with yeast.
Yarster:
18 minutes is the amount of time it will take for a flour and water mixture (no yeast) to rise to the point of being considered “leavened.”
Yeast makes dough rise faster, but is not necessary to make it rise at all.
As the others said, once the stuff is cooked, it can’t become leavened (without the addition of something that can become leavened into the mix). Hence, Matzo meal is Kosher for Passover.