I'm such a lucky lady. I've finally obtained the super secret recipe for the Rapino holiday soup. It's only taken me 30 years to get this recipe! To put it in perspective, my mother spent decades trying to get this recipe out of my paternal grandmother. I mean the woman practically took it to her grave. If you've ever met a true Italian woman, her purpose and reason for breathing and living is to feed people. To protect this, they never share their recipes and therefore, she never wrote her recipes down. They were all up in that head of her's. And I'm sure she had some secret ingredient or certain way of doing things that made her food taste just slightly better that we will never know. With all of this said, I don't blame my grandmother for keeping it all hush hush. That's how she kept her worth, not that anyone would ever be able to trump her. But I understand, she needed to keep those recipes to herself for insurance. Fortunately for me, I managed to ask and email my cousin and aunts enough that they finally gave it up and wrote down the ingredients and approximate measurements. Maybe that's an exaggeration (shocker, I'm exaggerating! Oh wait, and there's our friend, sarcasm.), they were quite helpful.
Anyway, let's talk holiday soup! Holiday soup is a traditional Italian soup that is made and eaten on holidays, hence the name "holiday" soup. We're so creative, I know. To most other people in the U.S., holiday soup is also known as Italian wedding soup. I will tell you though, that crap that you get in a can doesn't hold a candle to holiday soup. Let me put it this way, my mother who is a total foodie, especially with Italian food, said this batch of soup I made today was the best soup she's had since my grandmother made it. Um, hello! That's a HUGE compliment coming from my mother. She does not mess when it comes to Italian food. And my father, don't even get me started, was over the moon. He talked about how good that soup was all night and even said it tasted just like my grandmother's. I couldn't be more thrilled! My grandmother was the best cook my family has ever known. And this recipe came straight from Italy. It was not some recipe found in a magazine or book. Straight from the boot, people!!
Normally I'm willing to share recipes in a split second. On my grandmother's behalf and to walk in her footsteps, I think I'm going to keep this one in the family. Haha. Sorry!!!
I will tell you what is in it though: tiny little meatballs (that took three of us to roll by hand! And my dad is by far the best at it since his mother made him do it while growing up - he's the holiday soup expert!), chicken broth (my grandmother used to make giant jars of this stuff from scratch - I don't have the expertise or time to do that so I get it out of a box), homemade croutons, and escarole. That's it! And it's amazing!
The main dish for Christmas dinner was my mother's yummy lasagna. O-M-G, she makes a mean lasagna. So your next question probably is: Did she make her own sauce? The answer here on this occasion is no. On other occasions, she does make her own sauce and it's really good. But today she used Rao's sauce. If you are going to buy sauce, this is certainly the way to go. It's more expensive than other brands like Ragu and such but trust me, it's worth every extra penny. It's like $10 a jar. Like I said a little steep but you haven't taken the 5 hours to cook this sauce or expensed the money to make it taste this good. For those of you who don't know, Rao's is a restaurant in NYC where the tables are owned by people. Meaning its ultra exclusive and you can't just make a reservation to go there. You have to know someone. Once you taste the sauce, you'll understand why.
Okay so you're now probably wondering what in god's name this looks like. Well, lucky for you, I take pictures of all of my food! Haha. It's not normal, I know. But it makes me happy. With no further adieu here are some pics of making the meatballs and croutons and the final products.
Hope you enjoyed your Christmas meals as much as I enjoyed mine!
Much love, peace, and joy to you all during this holiday season! Salud!
