Matzo ball soup is a dish with two camps and no negotiating room: floaters versus sinkers. The sinker camp believes that a dense, chewy ball is the point. The floater camp — which includes Alex Reznik, whose Hayworth in Henderson and Ditmas in Los Angeles have made him one of the more quietly influential voices in contemporary kosher cooking — believes a matzo ball should feel like it could float away if you turned your attention elsewhere.
Reznik's floaters run on schmaltz, not oil — the fat matters, and schmaltz at room temperature creates a different fat crystal structure than neutral oil. He separates the eggs and folds the whites in last, whipped to soft peaks, which is the technique that nobody bothers with and the reason the balls float. The mix rests for thirty minutes in the refrigerator before forming, which gives the matzo meal time to hydrate fully before heat sets the structure.
Bobby Flay's matzo ball soup, produced without the weight of cultural obligation or the experience of having cooked this dish for people who will tell you if you got it wrong, was a sinker in every sense.
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