Stracciatella Soup

(Above: This soup is great all year, but much appreciated on a snowy day.)

This is soup season. And with more than two feet of snow dropping in the Boston area in less than 12 hours, we’re in the thick of it.

What better soup is there to help weather the storm than stracciatella, sometimes referred to as Roman Egg Drop soup? My mother used to make a version of this.

Here’s a quick recipe for Spinach Stracciatella Soup (Serve with grated parmesan cheese on the side.):

STRACCIATELLA SOUP

February 9, 2013

Difficulty: Medium

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To make homemade chicken soup, I usually buy a roasting chicken and cook it for dinner one night and then after a day or so (when most of the meat has been picked off clean), I use it to make the chicken broth.

By: Mark Micheli

Ingredients

Chicken broth (About 8-10 cups. Use your favorite. Homemade is easy and economical. See recipe below.)
Pasta for the soup (I like cheese or meat tortellini for this soup, but you can use any short pasta such as bow ties or fusilli.)
Chopped fresh spinach or a 10 oz package of frozen chopped spinach (thawed and drained)
Eggs (2 large, beaten)
Parmesan cheese (About one cup, grated. Please, use the imported. Or at least freshly grated Romano or Pecorino. The stuff you buy in a jar in the supermarket isn’t cheese. It’s more like plastic.)

Directions

Step 1 To make homemade chicken soup: Drop the carcass into a large soup pot. If it’s a tall pot, cover it with about four inches of water. If it’s a wide pot, cover it with about 2 inches of water. Add a carrot, a celery stick, maybe an onion, some salt and pepper. Boil it for an hour or more. Take out the carcass and strain the liquid through a fine-mesh sieve into a large plastic container. Put it in the fridge overnight. In the morning skim off the fat. You can now use the broth as you see fit.
Step 2 Bring the broth to a slow boil. Drop in the tortellini (or short pasta of your choice) and cook until nearly done. Then drop in the frozen spinach and about 1/4 cup of parmesan cheese.
Step 3 Cook until spinach and tortellini are done and the broth is just simmering.
Step 4 Stir soup and slowly pour in the beaten egg in a continuous stream. Continue stirring until the egg is cooked.
Step 5 Add salt and pepper as needed.