Avgolemono, or Lemon and Eggs
An excellent way to use up leftovers or just dribs and drabs in the pantry!
4-8 cups of chicken stock
1 cup cooked white rice (you can also use small pasta if that’s one of your random ingredients)
3 eggs
4 tablespoons of lemon juice
1 garlic clove, grated or minced
salt and freshly ground black pepper
In Greek, the name of this soup means “egg” and “lemon”.
The first order of business is to put the stock into a pot and get it boiling. Once it boils, add the grated garlic and let it simmer for a minute.
Now, add the rice. While the rice is being warmed by the broth, beat the eggs until they are frothy. Add the lemon juice and stir well.
Now, this is the tricky part - tricky, I say, because if you dump the cold egg into boiling broth you will end up with a Greek-styled egg drop soup. This is Not what we Want. You are going to gently, kindly introduce the hot broth to the egg mix.
Take a spoon and add a few spoonfuls of broth to the egg, stirring well. When that’s mixed in, add a couple more spoonfuls of broth. This warms the egg mix up slowly so that you can bring the two together without tragedy. It’s important that the broth isn’t boiling, so you might want to lower the heat to make sure it stays just ‘really really hot’.
When you have mixed enough broth into the eggs to make the egg mix relatively warm, stir it into the broth. Don’t let it boil again, or the egg will curdle. Take it off the heat, stir in salt and pepper and serve