Today it was a rather cold day here in Athens 2 – 8o C (35 – 46 F), so it was a good opportunity to have soup. Avgolemono soup (meaning egg and lemon soup), is a traditional Greek soup which usually starts with a chicken broth, so I boiled chicken (see tip How to… clean and boil a chicken) and in the chicken stock I prepared the soup.
Avgolemono Soup
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 1 hour to boil the chicken and 20 minutes for the soup
Servings: 5 -6
Ingredients:
Boil a chicken or parts of a chicken, whichever you prefer. If you do not wish to boil a chicken, add chicken stock and 2 tablespoon of olive oil. Taste before adding salt because stock contains salt.
For the soup:
- ½ cup of rice (Carolina or Arborio)
- 6 glasses of water
- salt
Directions:
Wash rice and add to broth. As soon as it starts boiling lower heat and cook for about 20 minutes.
For the avgolemono sauce:
- 2 – 3 egg yolks
- ½ cup of lemon juice (depending on how sour you prefer it)
- Chicken broth
Directions:
Beat eggs with a fork or mixer and add lemon juice.
Take broth with a ladle and while still beating eggs, start pouring broth, a little at a time, (about a glass).
Then pour all mixture back in the pan and stir well with ladle.
When served, add freshly ground black pepper on top.
Apart from chicken, avgolemono soup can also be made with fish or meat stock.
If skin is not removed from chicken while boiling, a nice thick soup will be achieved. Otherwise, while boiling rice, add a couple of spoonfuls of olive oil. Towards the end, dissolve one tablespoon of corn flour (corn starch) with water and add as an additional thickener.
Tags: Avgolemono, Rice, Soups, Traditional
I giggle when Greeks lament of cold weather!
However, the Avgolemeno was made for days like these and it’s always best (as you did) made with real chicken stock (koto zoumo).
I told my family today that I wrote about the cold and I told them that when they see it in Canada and Alaska they will be laughing at me, but still for us it is cold.
[...] broth away. We can use it to cook pasta or rice in it or make a nice chicken soup with rice, called Avgolemono (which means egg and [...]
[...] Avgolemono Soup [...]