Although I am but a simple gentile, I have had the absolute joy and luck of being surrounded by Jewish family and friends all my life, one of the major benefits of which is all the wonderful food. Passover has some of the best, and it’s coming up! Whether you’ve been to a Passover seder or not, you have probably stumbled across matzo ball soup, that comforting classic with matzo balls (floating, sinking, or hovering depending on who you ask) in chicken broth with a few vegetable pieces.

As usual, I want to mess with perfection and add some cheese to this whole situation (very not kosher, I know); something firm and dry that can be eaten next to the soup or dipped right in. If you’ve never just dipped a piece of cheese into a bowl of hot broth, I recommend you try it with Podda Misto. Podda Misto is a firm cow and sheep’s milk cheese from Sardinia that is packed with savory, nutty, tanginess. We sometimes think of its flavor profile as being a bridge between Pecorino and Parmigiano, since it has the depth and saltiness of a pecorino with the sweetness of a Parm. It is perfect for grating, melting, or snacking, and best of all, it holds up to a bath in something steamy. I like to cut thick triangles off the wedge for an easy handle.

Cut off a chunk, hold one end in the soup, keeping it submerged longer if you want the piece to be meltier. I like a quick dunkeroo so the cheese lightly melts on the outside while staying firm on the inside, creating a pleasant contrast of textures. It tastes salty and slightly lemony, which is just enhanced by the clean, chicken flavors of matzo ball soup. I like a taste of cheese, sip of broth, bite of matzo ball, and round and round and round we go. And if matzo ball soup is not in your rotation, try this trick with lentil soup, any kind of brothy fish soup, chicken tortilla soup … I haven’t tried it in pho but I imagine it would be delish. Let your wildest soup-and-cheese dreams run wild!

For the love of cheese and adding cheese to everything,

Kiri

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P.S. Here’s a really cool graphic on Michael Twitty’s website afroculinaria.com. He is a food writer, chef, Judaic studies teacher, and historian who focuses on “preparing, preserving, and promoting African American foodways...” He “meld[s] the histories, tastes, flavors, and Diasporic wisdom of being Black and being Jewish.” Fascinating! The graphic we linked here is to an “African American Seder Plate for Passover.”