Owner Drew Glick shares secrets to the 'perfect' matzo ball soup, based on a recipe from his Grandma Lily, including light and fluffy matzo balls.
Max & Louie 's owner Drew Glick serves his Grandma Lily 's recipe for matzo ball soup. Well, close enough for comfort food. Like many grandmothers, Grandma Lily “always had an apron on and was always cooking,” he said, but never wrote anything down.
'Grandma Lily made the best matzo balls on Earth,' said Glick, who was rolling matzo balls at age 5. 'She was 4 foot, 11 inches, barely made it on the counter, but she made this big, fluffy matzo ball; it was amazing.' Glick's father, Melvin, knew to turn to his mother-in-law whenever a matzo ball mishap emerged. 'My dad had a catering company in New York my whole life, and he would periodically call my grandmother,' said Glick, who grew up in Queens. 'He literally would almost fly her in from Florida because we could not get the matzo balls to be perfect every time. Now, we were making hundreds and hundreds, and she was making, you know, 12 or whatever.' What's one thing that makes them “perfect?” They must float, according to Glick. “There are two types of matzo balls: floaters and sinkers,” Glick said as he held a cooked, split matzo ball in his hand. “We’re a floater family. This is a floater; it’s light; it’s cooked all the way through. If they weren’t cooked properly or were taken off too soon, they’re sinkers — these lead pucks at the bottom of your soup. 'If it’s a sinker, you’ll see a little bit of this color in the middle. Every once in a while one gets stuck in the corner of the pot and maybe doesn’t cook, and we toss the poor sinker when we’re done.” Since opening Max & Louie's in 2016, Glick has carried on the Ashkenazi tradition, selling “hundreds and hundreds” of bowls of matzo ball soup each week. “We sell matzo ball soup when it’s 100 degrees outside and when it’s 20 degrees,” said Glick, who even supplied local H-E-B stores with quarts of matzo ball soup in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Each bowl of matzo ball soup at Max & Louie's starts with spiral egg noodles, hardier than his late grandmother's thin egg noodles, lokshen, to meet the restaurant demand. The cooked celery, carrots and onion are layered on top, followed by pulled chicken, two matzo balls and ladles of chicken soup. “We build every bowl to order,” Glick said. “Some people don’t want noodles; some people don’t want chicken.” The Max & Louie's menu includes 186 items for breakfast, lunch and dinner, but Glick estimates they actually serve thousands since diners can modify every item — “unless it’s impossible.” Whole chickens help create the soup base. 'It's all about the bones. You want the skin; you want the bones; you want all that. You can figure out a way to make it less fattening on your own after the fact. You need all that flavor to make it a good, hearty chicken soup,' Glick explained. Adding half the vegetables to the pot in the beginning and then half later keeps them from getting too mushy during the two-hour cook time. Each restaurant serving is garnished with bagel chips made from Max & Louie's from-scratch bagels that have been sliced and baked. “We put a couple of chips on the spoon so the chips hang off the side of the plate, kind of a little punchy thing,” Glick said. “We have other kinds of interesting things on sides of plates, sides of milkshakes, through the whole Max & Louie’s experience.” Making matzo balls The base of matzo balls is matzo meal, available in local grocery stores, that is made from grinding matzo — also known as matzah or matzoh. The unleavened bread, which is referenced in Exodus and Deuteronomy in the Torah, is central to the Jewish celebration of Passover. According to Hebrew scripture, after the Israelites' exodus from slavery in Egypt, they ate unleavened bread as they walked the desert with Moses. While matzo ball soup has historical, cultural and religious significance, it also is a nostalgic comfort food eaten throughout the year even by those who are not Jewish. To make matzo balls, the meal is mixed with baking powder, salt, garlic powder, onion powder and white pepper before eggs and oil are added. “They’re just delicate,” Glick said. “You want to mix it thoroughly, but you don’t want to beat the daylights out of it. You’ll feel that consistency; you’ll see a little less of that matzo flour, that white floury look. Put this in the refrigerator and cover it, about 30 minutes, so the whole thing chills.” The chilling just might be the secret to “fluffy floaters,” Glick added. “Some people, instead of baking soda, will use carbonated seltzer water like club soda in there. That was I think one of my grandmother’s secrets, but she never wrote anything down, so we use a little bit of baking soda in there.” Make the matzo balls about 1 and a half ounces, not too big, because they will expand and have to cook through. Glick recommends putting a little bit of oil on your hand while handling the mixture just enough to form the balls. “Some people freeze them; we don’t,” Glick said. “I think the water aspect of when you defrost them, it just changes the constitution of the item where it’s just too moist.” Glick cooks the matzo balls in boiling water with a little salt, but you can boil them in the chicken soup. He cautioned it will change the flavor, as they soak up seasoning like a sponge and take on a yellow hue. “You cook them until they rise at the top,” he said. “Every once in a while, maybe just pat it down and flip it over, so it gets both sides. When they’re done, you can sacrifice one ball and take it out, and if it still has rawness in the middle, put it back in another 15 minutes.” You can add more salt to the soup at the end, but you might want to start with less salt in the matzo balls if you are cooking them in the soup. “Some people like it saltier; everything’s a tweak at the end,” Glick said. “I used to go into the kosher butcher stores in Brooklyn, and at the cash register, they would always have these little bouillon cubes. A little more cube, a little less cube gave you a little more chicken flavor, a little less chicken flavor, a little saltier, a little less. That’s all individual taste.” Family roots Max & Louie's is named after two Eastern European immigrants: Glick's great-uncle Max Braverman, who built a wholesale meat company, and his grandfather Louie Glick, who built Glick Brothers Butcher Stores in Brooklyn with the help of his five brothers. The family's roots are reflected on the menu in more than just the matzo ball soup. “This is Max & Louie’s way of doing traditional things with some leeway for the way I grew up eating it,” Glick said. “You can go to the house next door, and they’ll be eating the same food slightly different.” Max & Louie’s Hungarian stuffed cabbage roll and split-pea soup were featured in Julia Celeste Rosenfeld’s “San Antonio Cooks: Favorite Recipes from Local Chefs and Restaurants” . “Stuffed cabbage is a very traditional Eastern European dish,” Glick said. “Some make it sweet, some savory. My grandmother made it with raisins in it, so that’s why I put raisins in.” The vegetarian split-pea soup is a traditional recipe from his other grandmother, Grandma Ray Glick, and “may be the first thing I ever ate in my whole life,” Glick said. “This is the way my grandmother made it, and the way I do it.” Max & Louie's has garnered a following for the way they do things, growing from a 125-seat restaurant to almost 300 seats. With a staff of 115, there are people in the building almost 24 hours a day, whether it's the cleaning crew, the bakers or the morning prep crew. “All the baking for Max & Louie’s up until three months ago was done right here at this table while all this other stuff was going on. Now we just built an entire bakery next door,” Glick said. The addition of Melvin's, an ice cream and espresso bar named after Glick's dad, includes the new bakery. You can find Jenn Riesman there making goodies such as Burnt Marshmallow Rice Krispies Treats, which she once sold at her former Rooster Crow Bakery. If you have been missing Riesman's custom cakes, she's taking special orders at Melvin's. The restaurant and Melvin's are both open 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. every day, staying open till 10 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. Max & Louie's, 210-483-7600, 226 W. Bitters, Suite 126, maxandlouiesdiner.com Matzo Ball Soup Chicken Soup 4 pounds whole chicken 2 pounds celery stalks, cleaned and sliced 1 pound carrots, peeled and sliced 1 yellow onion, rinsed and sliced 2 ounces fresh parsley , rinsed and chopped 1.5 ounces fresh dill , rinsed and chopped 2 teaspoons black peppercorns 2 bay leaves 1 tablespoon sea salt or more to taste Instructions: In a large 10-quart pot, add half the carrots, half the celery, and the onion cut in halves. Place whole chicken or bone-in, skin-on chicken pieces in pot. Fill pot with water to cover chicken and bring to a boil. After boiling, turn heat down to allow pot to simmer for 15 minutes. Skim fat from top periodically. Add additional water, usually about 2 cups. Add salt, remaining celery and carrots, parsley and dill and bay leaves. Bring back to simmer. Cover pot, reduce heat to low and let cook for about 90 minutes. Cool when done. Pull chicken, discarding bones and skin, and add back to soup. Matzo Ball 1 cup matzo meal 1 teaspoon baking powder ¼ teaspoon kosher salt, heaping ¼ teaspoon garlic powder, heaping ¼ teaspoon onion powder, heaping ¼ teaspoon white pepper 4 large eggs ¼ cup melted schmaltz or vegetable oil Instructions: In a medium mixing bowl, use a fork to stir together the matzo meal, baking powder, salt, garlic powder, onion powder and white pepper. In another small mixing bowl, use another fork to mix the eggs and schmaltz , stirring briskly to make sure they are well blended. Pour egg mixture into the dry ingredients. Mix all ingredients together with a fork until just combined. Do not over-mix. Put the bowl of matzo ball mixture into the refrigerator and let it chill for 30 minutes. Bring 5 quarts of chicken broth or water to a boil. While your broth or water is warming, form the chilled matzo ball mixture into 1-inch balls . Don't overwork the mixture when you roll the balls. When your broth or water boils, reduce heat to a simmer and drop the matzo balls gently into the liquid. Cover the pot with a lid and let the balls cook for 30-50 minutes until fluffy and soft. Keep the pot covered for at least 30 minutes. The balls should be floating on the surface of the liquid. Test for doneness by slicing a matzo ball in half. It should look the same all the way through the center -- tender, with no dark spot in the middle. If the middle is darker than the edges, the matzo balls will need to simmer a little longer - they are not quite cooked yet. Don't be afraid to cook longer if it seems dense in the center; it really won't be light and fluffy unless it is fully saturated with broth and cooked all the way to the center. Source: Drew Glick, Max & Louie’s New York Diner
COVID Hebrew New York Diner Drew Glick Max & Louie Max &Amp Grandma Lily Melvin Louie Glick Grandma Lily Jenn Reisman Israelites Max Braverman Lillian Bromberg Grandma Ray Glick Ashkenazi Moses Julia Celeste Rosenfeld New York Diner Earth Queens Florida Max &Amp Glick Brothers Butcher Stores Brooklyn Egypt Eastern European Hungarian Rooster Crow Bakery Passover Matzo Ball Burnt Marshmallow Rice Krispies Treats Jewish Torah Suite 126 W. Bitters Exodus Deuteronomy Favorite Recipes From Local Chefs And Restaurants San Antonio Cooks
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