Classic Italian Wedding Soup

Celebrate Like an Italian – Classic Italian Wedding Soup. In the dialect of the Lucani (as natives of Basilicata are known) maritare means “to wed,” and I have always thought that this wonderful soup was so named because it was customarily served at wedding celebrations. Recently, however, I came upon another explanation of why it is called maritata—because it weds vegetables (in the soup base) with meat (in the polpette), and with this added protein it becomes a complete and balanced one-course meal! Join me in my kitchen as I prepare this classic recipe that marries vegetables and meatballs in a hearty, delicious soup!
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00:00 – Intro
00:13 – Making the Stock
02:18 – Making the Soup
03:02 – Making the Meatballs
06:23 – Finishing the Soup
07:08 – Tasting the Soup

Recipe – https://lidiasitaly.com/recipes/wedding-soup-2/

Great with – https://youtu.be/j-fDLhm2vFI

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Zupa Maritata. A celebratory meal always begins with a celebratory soup. And in order to have a celebratory soup, you have to have a great stock. And a great stock requires a nice assortment of different bones and meats. So here we have some beef ribs. These are some beef knuckles. You know, there’s a lot of gelatin here and cartilage and all that is good for the soup and all of the chicken parts. Now, when you have your chickens and you buy it whole and you have the little wings, the necks here, you know, all of that, save it. Save it all. Put it in the freezer and when the time comes to make a great soup, this is it. Once the meat is in, we get the vegetables, leaks. So these are green parts of the leaks all the way up. Make sure you wash them well because the leaks do have sand. Parsley with the stem and all. Just throw it right in. And onions and carrots. I’ll put the carrots whole because then I’ll [music] reuse them in the soup. So I don’t want them to really fall apart. peppercorns, tomato paste, [music] and that gives it that tomatoy flavor and concentration and a little bit of color. And those cheese rind. I always tell you when you’re grating your cheese, save the rind. You just scratch you scratch the outside. And I think I’ll cut it in half just [music] to spread out the good flavor. And you throw it right in the soup. And that will deliver a lot of flavor to your soup. You bring it to a boil. Then you lower it and let it simmer. And we’ll salt it towards the end. So the stock has cooked. We strained it. The meat that was in it, we fished that out. The carrots are here. The meat is chilled now. And so let’s collect whatever pieces of meat we can and we’ll put it back in. So this is from the rib. Cut it in small pieces. Here I have some of the chicken meat. Everything that was on those bones we collected. Let’s let’s [music] cut off the fat. And [music] that’s that. >> [music] >> Okay. And let’s put all of that back into the soup. The carrots as well. [music] [music] Let’s get this back in the soup. M. Now, let’s get to the meatballs. And I have questions. And I get a lot of questions about this soup. We have another question from Carol Brana, and she’s from Rhode Island. And Carol wants to know, “When making wedding soup, I make my meatballs with hamburger, grated cheese, and parsley. Is this the right way to do it?” Well, Carol, here we are. So, you said you’re making it with hamburger, right? When I say hamburger, uh, it could be chopped meat, mixed meat. Yes, it could be all beef. Here I have pork and turkey, but you can make it all chicken just as long as you flavor it uh, well, and it’s nice and tasty. And then you get grated cheese. We got that here. And parsley. We got that here. And ah, you’re missing the breadcrumbs. And you’re missing the egg. So, you’re part of the way correct. Uh, this is how I make it. So, you have the hamburger meat. Get the egg in there. Some salt now because I want to make sure that it’s seasoned properly. Maybe a little bit of pepper. Okay. The breadcrumbs. Do I need all of it? I think about [music] this much should do. Cheese. Yes. Cheese. kind of binds everything. Chopped parsley. Yeah, a nice amount [music] of chopped parsley. So, I think that this should do. And it’s not so different than the regular meatballs. But, of course, to get it all going, I need to get in there and give it a nice [music] mixing all together. And voila. [music] Now it’s question of rolling them. Not too big, small meatballs. And you can do this ahead of time. Certainly, you can have somebody help you make them ahead [music] of time. Keep them in the refrigerator. The soup can be made ahead of time. And in this soup, we will add, of course, the green part, [music] whether it’s the escar, whether it’s the chory, whether it’s spinach. Spinach makes it a little sweeter, a little lighter, but also we will add orzo, which is the pasta. You can add everything, make the soup and everything, but I would add the orzo just before you’re ready to serve it because you don’t want the pasta to overcook. [music] Okay, I’m just about done with the meatballs and we’ll put them right into the soup. Just like that. All right. Okay, the meatballs should be just about cooked. Let me taste for the seasoning. The salt. The aroma is delicious. Salt. And now to finish the soup, we’ll put some orzo. Orzo is really barley, but this is pasta that looks like barley, the shapes. And it’s great. Italians use it a lot in their soups. And these are just spinach leaves. And uh if you have escarole, if you have any of the chory family, that’s delicious, too. But uh spinach makes it really sweet. It’s a sweet soup. And this is the last step of the cooking of the soup. 5 7 minutes. It’ll be ready to be enjoyed. The soup din the wedding soup is done. The pasta is cooked. The spinach is cooked. Voila. And uh you you should serve it right away because you know you want it hot and uh you don’t want the pasta to overcook. Grab a little bit of everything. Mhm. [music] And I think that’s a nice presentation. And so you can see that’s ringing for there’s a lot to eat. There’s the richness of the soup, the vegetables, the meatballs, and then I’m going to add some cheese. Mia. Okay. And um it’s hot. I want to get in there, but it’s hot. Let me maybe cut a little piece right here. And I get a little spinach. And I get a little bit of the orzo. [music] It’s really good. It’s delicious. It’s sweet. It’s complex. The [music] meat just enough texture. And the spinach really, really sweet. Nice. The carrots. They use it as the beginning as an opener of a big kind of festive meal. But certainly this could hold up being the whole meal. [music] And it’s delicious.