ITALIAN WEDDING SOUP

ITALIAN WEDDING SOUP

MINISTRA MARITATA

Well here’s a kicker for you!!  Last night I received a phone call from a friend of mine, asking me if I had a recipe for Italian Wedding Soup.  A couple of years ago when I was teaching, I held a class on just soup.  I researched the recipe and presented it to the class.  When I was a kid I had never heard of Italian Wedding Soup. It was simply chicken broth with meatballs. No one ever talk about this soup being served at weddings.  But I did assume it was.  Since meatballs first originated in Sicily, I thought it was a Sicilian custom, although I didn’t see it served at Michael’s and Apollonia’s wedding.  (Think about that and let me know if you figured it out)

I decided to some research on the soup. The kicker is that name comes for the Italian word, MARITATA, which means MARRIAGE. The name of the soup is derived from the MARRIAGE of the ingredients in the soup and not because it is served at weddings. There are a number of different variants of Italian wedding soup, but all the recipes for it call for the addition of tiny meatballs, which can be made of pork, pork and beef mixed together.

This recipe probably makes enough for 8 servings. If you want to halve the recipe, you can do so with out any problems.  If you do want to make the entire recipe and freeze some of it, keep the meatballs and broth separate.  The meatballs will become soggy and absorb a lot of the broth.

At an Italian meal, soup is the first course and then comes the pasta.  If you are serving pasta at the meal, there is no need to add pasta to the soup.  As a matter of fact it's a gourmet mistake. However, if you are not, then you can add pasta. I would use the tiny pastas, such as “pastina”, orzo, or any other small shaped pasta. If you are freezing some, do not freeze with the pastas in the soup.  As with the meatballs, the pasta will absorb most of the liquid and become soggy

                         ITALIAN WEDDING SOUP

Meatballs:

     1 lbs. ground beef, or ground pork, or combination of both

1 egg, beaten

1-teaspoon garlic, minced

½ medium-sized onion, minced

2 tablespoons parsley, minced

¼ cup grated Parmesan, Romano or Asiago cheese

½ cup breadcrumbs

Broth:

6 14.5-ounce cans chicken broth, or 11 cups of homemade chicken broth

½ chopped medium onion

3 carrots, sliced and chopped

Salt to taste

½ teaspoon hot red pepper flakes, (optional)

1-10-ounce package frozen chopped spinach (squeezed dry, or

1 package fresh spinach, chopped

You can substitute 1 cup of chopped parsley for the spinach

For the meatballs, preheat oven to 375 degrees

1.     Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl and thoroughly mix.

2.     Form meatballs, the size of a round quarter

3.     Arrange formed meatballs on baking sheet

4.     Bake for 20 minutes.

5.     Remove from baking sheet and drain on paper towel

6.     Combine onion and carrots and salt with chicken broth

7.     Simmer for 15 minutes

8.     Add pepper flakes and chopped spinach

9.     Add meatballs and simmer for 30 minutes.

ENJOY