Famous in Pittsburgh: Italian Wedding Soup

Last week I was on a business trip to Pittsburgh and stayed the weekend to visit my friend Dani and her kids. Now before you think eww Pittsburgh, I have to say, Pittsburgh is actually a lovely city, the rivers and bridges are really pretty. The people are incredibly friendly and the city itself has interesting architecture and it is very clean. (There are other places I travel which I will not say such nice things about!) Whenever I travel somewhere I am always curious about the local foods. Before I left I was reading that Pittsburgh has a lot of multi-cultural foods because of all the immigrants who came to Pittsburgh to work in the steel industry. All over the city you can find foods like Pierogies, Chipped Ham and Fried Zucchini Strips. Pittsburgh is also famous for some common foods that were invented there, like Heinz Ketchup, Clark Bars, Klondike bars and even the Big Mac! The food that I was really amazed by is the Italian Wedding Soup, which is so popular you can even buy it at some McDonald's! Here is Giada de Laurentis recipe for Italian Wedding Soup.

Meatballs:
1 small onion, grated
1/3 cup chopped fresh Italian parsley
1 large egg
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon salt
1 slice fresh white bread, crust trimmed, bread torn into small pieces
1/2 cup grated Parmesan
8 ounces ground beef
8 ounces ground pork
Freshly ground black pepper

Soup:
12 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1 pound curly endive, coarsely chopped (1 pound of escarole would be a good substitution)
2 large eggs
2 tablespoon freshly grated Parmesan, plus extra for garnish
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

To make the meatballs: Stir the first 6 ingredients in a large bowl to blend. Stir in the cheese, beef and pork. Using 1 1/2 teaspoons for each, shape the meat mixture into 1-inch-diameter meatballs. Place on a baking sheet.

To make the soup: Bring the broth to a boil in a large pot over medium-high heat. Add the meatballs and curly endive and simmer until the meatballs are cooked through and the curly endive is tender, about 8 minutes. Whisk the eggs and cheese in a medium bowl to blend. Stir the soup in a circular motion. Gradually drizzle the egg mixture into the moving broth, stirring gently with a fork to form thin stands of egg, about 1 minute. Season the soup to taste with salt and pepper.

Ladle the soup into bowls and serve. Finish soup with parmesan cheese if desired.