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My review
Chef John's Italian Wedding Soup
Chef John
"Don't wait for a wedding to make this delicious and comforting soup with kale, tiny pasta, and tender little beef meatballs."
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Ingredients
6 h 10 m servings 214 calsOriginal recipe yields 8 servings
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Directions
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Prep
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Ready In
- Heat 2 teaspoons vegetable oil in a large, heavy pot over high heat; brown beef shank slice in hot oil until seared and browned on both sides, about 3 minutes per side. Add onion, carrot, celery, water, bay leaf, 3 cloves peeled garlic, and black peppercorns; bring mixture to a simmer. Reduce heat to low and simmer until meat falls off the bone and stock turns brown in color, 4 to 5 hours. Add more water if beef stock level gets below about 5 cups.
- Place beef short ribs into freezer until firm and very cold, about 15 minutes. Cut meat into cubes and return to freezer until almost frozen, about 30 more minutes.
- Whisk egg with parsley, 2 cloves garlic, and cream in a bowl. Stir in bread crumbs and 1/4 cup Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese.
- Place partially-frozen beef cubes into food processor and pulse with with 1/3 teaspoon salt and 1/8 teaspoon black pepper until beef is coarsely ground, 5 to 10 pulses. Pulse in bread crumb mixture until mixture is finely ground, about 5 more pulses. Transfer meat to a bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate.
- Strain beef stock into a large soup pot, discarding beef and vegetables. Mix chicken broth into beef stock and whisk in tomato paste. Bring broth mixture to a simmer and season with salt and black pepper to taste. Stir kale into broth; simmer kale until tender, about 15 minutes.
- Scoop 2-teaspoon portions of the meat mixture and roll into meatballs.
- Pour pastina into the simmering soup, cook for 5 minutes, and gently add meatballs. Simmer until meatballs are cooked through and tender, about 15 minutes. Serve in bowls garnished with a pinch of black pepper or a sprinkle of shredded Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese.
Footnotes
- Cook's Note:
- To make fresh bread crumbs, cut crusts from fresh Italian bread, cut bread into cubes, and process in a food processor into fine crumbs, 10 to 30 seconds.
Nutrition Facts
Per Serving: 214 calories; 10.2 g fat; 16.8 g carbohydrates; 14.5 g protein; 47 mg cholesterol; 713 mg sodium. Full nutrition
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Reviews
Read all reviews 9Most helpful
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8/26/2014
For those wondering where the ground beef is, The recipe has you use a food processor to coarsely grind the beef and combine it with the meatball ingredients. Overall this is an amazing recipe a...
12/30/2016
This is probably the fussiest and most labor intensive Italian-American Wedding Soup that you will ever make. It also is one of the very best if you use really good chicken stock (preferably hom...
3/15/2016
Made this for our annual neighborhood "Soupzilla" competition...(.tied for first place). Meatballs are a little time consuming, but well worth it. Followed the recipe exactly; just found that I ...
1/17/2015
Delicious. Made this tonight and it is so tasty. I had lots of greens in frig so used one 10 oz packages of Kale and 1 pkg Southern Greens from Trader Joe's with eggs, heavy whipping cream and b...
1/2/2017
"Stupid inertia!" Haha! Chef John, you are so funny - as well as a great chef with great teaching style. This soup is fantastic!
1/11/2016
This was so tasty! And I will use the meatball portion of this recipe next time I make meatballs-- these were the best I've ever had!
1/7/2015
Chef John, I have not made this yet....I definitely want to try it, but I was wondering, why do you not just use ground beef instead of using a food processor to grind it?
5/30/2014
This recipe sounds delicious Chef John, and I'm dying to make it, but I believe you're missing an ingredient...the meat for the meatballs!! This is my 10 year old son's favorite soup and he's p...