Meatball Soup
As a child, I had this soup often in my daycare. Yes, we were given real food there, not crackers or paper-like chicken nuggets or lousy hotdogs... Actually I remember quite a few treats from my daycare. Of course at that time there was zero appreciation - kids are kids, picky eaters almost all of them. Here are some of the dishes I recall - awesome fruit compote, made of variety of dry fruits. Lucky ones were getting whole pear sitting on a bottom of a glass. Or cream-of-wheat dessert - cut-up block of cream-of-wheat, cooked on milk, cooled down and topped with a delicious berry sauce. Or home-made (well, made by daycare chef) potato pierogies, yummm. Oh, my dear aunt Maria was working as a chef in my daycare and at some rare occasions I was allowed to bring couple of friends with me to the daycare kitchen... Rest in peace, my dear aunt Maria.
OK, back to 2013... So, looking at a container of store-bought ground turkey, I recalled that meatball soup which, back in Ukraine, has funny name FRIKADELKIE SOUP (try to pronounce it :) Simple potato soup, with a meatballs floating around, it is especially loved by children. If you have picky eater in a house - try it ... for greater fun try to stick short carrot sticks (as eyes) into each meatball and may be another piece of carrot as a mouth.
Variations
- The best, of course, to use home-ground meat. But, as you know for this crazy life this option often is not viable, so use any kind of store bought ground meat you like.
- Carrots are not mandatory here at all, use celery to replace carrots or omit carrots and celery all together.
- Fresh herbs, either dill or parsley, or both, are the must. You won't get that special fresh aroma without it.
Taste Description
There is a significant amount of meatballs in a soup, thus, you will have rich-tasting, beautiful bullion. A lot of potato, over-cooked and partially smashed, is a perfect base for this spring-flavored (hello! herbs), homey soup.
How to Serve and Store
Serve hot and then listen to slurps, that great sound track to a perfect soup.
Meatball Soup
- 2 lb ground turkey
- 6 large potatoes, peeled and roughly diced
- 1 carrot, peeled and finely chopped (optional, or replace with celery)
- 1 onion, chopped
- 1-2 tbs olive oil
- 1-2 tbs dry onion flakes
- fresh dill
- fresh parsley
- 1 egg
- 1 bay leaf (optional)
- ground black pepper
- salt
- To make meatball mix, mix ground turkey with some salt, ground black pepper, dry onion flakes and egg. With your hands, make meatballs and place them on a wet plate (it will prevent them from sticking to the plate). For neat, evenly sized meatballs I like to use cookie dough spoon - it also speeds up a process a little bit.
- In a large pot, with olive oil, cook onion until it just starts to get some color.
- Add carrots, bay leaf and cook for a couple of minutes.
- Add potatoes, stir and add cold water to the level twice of a level of potato.
- Add salt to taste, bring to a boil and simmer until potato is cooked.
- One by one, place meatballs into a pot, bring to a boil and then simmer for at least 20 minutes. Using back of a large spoon, smash some potatoes off the pot wall.
- Check and adjust your seasoning, add fresh herbs and take soup off the heat. Done! Enjoy!
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IN PICTURES
At this point, do not worry about foam, it will go away later on.
Make soup a little bit creamier by smashing some potato.
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