Tortellini Stracciatella Soup

        On cold days I would love when my mom made Tortellini soup.  My mom was born and raised in Italy and growing up she had meals where scrambled eggs were dropped into hot pasta or pastina or into boiling soups.  As a kid and now as an adult my mom cooks many foods that she knows to make from her village and therefore I learned to enjoy the same foods.  

        The word stracciatella means "torn apart" and has a few different meanings when it comes to food.  It can mean an egg drop soup.  Here you heat soup to a rapid boil and then pour the egg in and whisk as fast as you can while the egg makes sheds of egg string.  In ice cream (Gelato) Stracciatella means a vanilla Gelato with thin shavings of chocolate.  This Gelato called Stracciatella is delicious and they serve it at many gelaterias in Italy and in the U.S. There are many places near my house that have that flavor!  The last meaning I know of for the name Stratacciella is one that I recently learned from a cooking show called "Extra Virgin," is it is a type of cheese used to stuff a soft mozzarella and it is called Burrata. 

        The Tortellini Stracciatella soup I make is comforting to eat and easy to make!

Ingredients: 

* 8 cups of chicken or vegetable broth

* 2 carrots cut up into whatever size you prefer

* 2 cups of cut up cooked white meat chicken (I buy the rotisserie chickens from Wegmans for $4.99 and cut up all the white meat on that for the soup.  It is inexpensive, tender, and already cooked for you!)

* 1/4 cup of freshly chopped parsley

* 2 cups of Barilla Mini Tortellini.  (The tortellini are dry and can be found in the pasta section of your grocery store)

* A bunch of baby spinach

* 2 eggs

* Salt and pepper to taste

* Grated cheese

Procedure:

* Boil 8 cups of broth

* Add cut up carrots and let cook in the broth until tender

* Once carrots are tender, add chicken, parsley and tortellini for 5 minutes

* After 5 minutes, bring soup to a rapid boil

* Beat 2 eggs in a small bowl and slowly pour egg mixture into rapid boiling soup with one hand and whisk egg quickly in the soup with a fork with the other hand.  You will see that the egg is turning into thin cooked shreds.  

* Let cook for another 3 minutes and ladle soup into bowls

* Take the baby spinach and put some in each bowl of soup.  The hot soup will cook the spinach perfectly!

* Sprinkle some grated cheese on top and enjoy!

~TIP: feel free to add celery and onion if you like or any other vegetable.
This is one soup that will definitely warm you up!

 

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