Avgolemono

Avgolemono is Greek Egg-Lemon Chicken Soup. I've only had this soup once before at restaurant and wanted to give it try. If you've never had it, its smooth almost creamy chicken soup with a nice tang of lemon. Its a really nice dish to make on a chilly fall night or if your feeling under the weather.


To start I poured six cups of chicken broth into a pot.

The prep for this soup could not be any easier. I cut one small onion in halve, and peeled one carrot. That's it! That's all the prep work that I needed to do! This is my kind of soup! I also needed one bay leaf. Once my veggies were prepped I added them to pot of stock along with a teaspoon of salt.

Once the stock is simmering I add two boneless skinless chicken breast to the pot and let it simmer gently for thirty minutes.

After the thirty minutes are up I remove the chicken and strain the vegetables from the stock. I was lazy and didn't feel like busting out the strainer so I just used my tongs and pulled out the onion, carrot and bay leaf. Seriously the pieces are so big you really don't need to go through the hassle of straining. Once everything was out of the pot I brought the stock back up to a boil and added one cup of long grain.

The rice needs to cook for twenty minutes so while that was happening I juiced two lemons for a quarter cup of lemon juice and I shredded my chicken.

Once the rice is done you add back in the chicken and let cook for a five more minutes. During that time I need to prepare my eggs. This recipe calls for the eggs to be tempered. Tempering is when you slowly bring the eggs up to temperature with hot liquid before you pour them in the pot of hot soup. If you do not temper the eggs first and just put the eggs in the soup the result is scrambled egg soup.  
I find that you should start with room temperature eggs. I had to whisk the eggs until foamy.

Once the eggs are whisked I added the lemon juice. I poured through a strainer to get all the pulp and seeds out. Then I whisked the eggs and lemon juice together.

Now the fun and tricky part tempering the eggs. I took one cup of hot stock from the soup pot and slowly poured it into my egg mixture while whisking quickly to keep the eggs from cooking. I repeated this one more time with another cup of stock until my eggs were warm.

Now that my eggs are nice and warm a I can pour them into the soup. Its amazing hour the addition of eggs changed the soup. Instead of a standard brothy chicken and rice soup. I know had a smooth and creamy soup without the addition of heavy cream. It reminded me almost of risotto. That lemon juice gives it an ice tangy bite that cuts through the richness.

To finish the soup I just added some chopped parseley and its ready to serve! This soup is really good and I can't wait to enjoy it on nice cold night. The day I made the soup it was 80 degrees so I didn't really need the warm cozy effect. Anyway hot or cold outside this soup is really good and makes a great lunch the next day!

This recipe is a keeper, I think it maybe my new go to chicken soup!