Matzah Balls and Passover Rolls - Mix(ed) Reviews

It's only a few more days until the start of Passover this coming Monday evening. So much to do, so little time! 

Today I cleaned out the pantry, vacuumed out the shelves, wiped them down to remove any remaining microscopic crumbs, replaced the shelving paper, then rearranged the ever decreasing chometz to free some shelves to rescue the pesadik groceries still wrapped in supermarket bags a corner of the dining room. 

That took me all morning because theHubby "helped" by manning a phone in each ear (and if he had a third he would have hogged the home landline as well) in his own rush to the tax season finish line supporting his clients, preventing me from vacuuming whenever he wandered out of his office and into the kitchen, phones still glued on.  While somehow simultaneously "chatting" with some online software help center as he breezed by his laptop.

Anywhoo ... the reviews.   Last Sunday I tried out Osem's matzah ball and Passover roll mixes.

The matzah ball mix only requires the addition of eggs.  No seltzer, which until now I thought was absolutely required for light fluffy matzah balls.  No oil either  since it's already built in.  

The balls are quicker to make than other mixes or scratch recipes.  The set-aside time is only 5-7 minutes (as opposed to the usual 15 minutes) to allow the dry ingredients to soak in the eggs.

I was impatient, waiting just 5 minutes before rolling out the mixture, but it was firmed up perfectly by then anyway. 

Not a sinker among them.  They never even hit the bottom of the pot ... dropped each one in and they started to bob around almost immediately.

Expanded nicely as well. They cook up fast, only 7 minutes rather than the usual 30-40 minutes.  The only negative was that the package says it makes 30 balls.  I made them  slightly under 1-inch each and counted only 26.

They taste the same as from-scratch.  Just a tad less "gritty," perhaps due to a finer grind of matzah meal (but not as fine as matzah cake meal).   They also reheat perfectly.  Two days afterwards I carted leftover soup with a couple matzah balls to work, frozen to make travel less messy, then nuked it all up at lunchtime.  The matzah balls looked and tasted exactly like their freshly-made cousins did.

Yes, I should have flattened them slightly.
The instructions don't mention this little big step.

Now for the rolls.  As good as the matzah balls were, the rolls were less so.  Its package says it make 10 rolls, which is true ...  if you make them around 1-inch each.  

The package says they only need to bake for up to 30 minutes.  These babies took almost 50 minutes, and I have an accurate oven.



Except for the slightly salty taste (which is interesting since they contain less sodium than the matzah ball mix), they taste pretty much like homemade.  Just much smaller.  Sorry, Osem, for the rolls I'll stick with my scratch recipe. 

Full disclosure: Osem USA provided several of their products at no cost to me to test and review. I received no monetary compensation. All opinions expressed are my own.