Photo of Avgolemono – Greek chicken and lemon soup by Edyta Linert (www.edytalinert.com)
Time for soup! Because there is nothing better on a chilly afternoon than a bowl of hot soup 🙂
This Greek Avgolemono soup is actually quite an interesting thing. The lemon and egg mixture, which plays a vital part in this recipe, is often used to thicken wide range of sauces, as well as other soups, in Mediterranean cuisine.
It actually makes sense, in my opinion. Eggs, when simply beaten or in some cases semi-cooked, give this silky texture to the mixture, while lemons finish the equation with a zing and freshness. And that’s exactly what Avgolemono soup is about! This thick, silky smooth soup with lemon and chicken is a very comforting lunch or even dinner idea 🙂
AVGOLEMONO
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 40 minutes
Total time: 50 minutes
Serves 2
Recipe by Tom
INGREDIENTS
- 1500 ml chicken stock
- 2 bay leaves
- 5 peppercorns
- 1 medium size chicken breast, cut lengthwise into strips
- 100 g rice or orzo pasta (see notes)
- 1 whole egg
- Zest of one lemon
- Juice of half a lemon
- Sea salt
- Freshly cracked black pepper
- 1 tsp freshly chopped dill or parsley for garnish
INSTRUCTIONS
- Put chicken stock on a medium heat, add bay leaves, peppercorns and chicken meat, bring to the boil and simmer for 15 minutes to make bouillon (see notes).
- Strain bouillon, keep the meat. Put 200 ml aside.
- Pour the rest of the bouillon back into a pan, return to the heat and add pasta or rice. Cook for 10 minutes, then turn off the heat.
- In a meantime, grab a mixing bowl and beat the egg with a whisk till foamy. Add lemon zest, then slowly pour lemon juice in while keeping on whisking.
- Take the warm stock you set aside earlier and slowly add to egg and lemon mixture, keep on whisking to combine it altogether (this is called tempering, see notes).
- Now slowly pour the tempered egg mixture to the remaining bouillon with orzo or rice and stir it altogether with a wooden spoon. Turn the heat back on and warm the soup up to thicken, this should take 3 – 5 minutes, do not boil (see notes), check the seasoning.
- Take it off of the heat. Grab two soup bowls, pour half of the soup into each one, add chicken meat, garnish with herbs and eat away 🙂
NOTES
- Orzo pasta is a short-cut type of pasta, shaped like a large grain of rice. Another name for it is risoni.
- Bouillon, also known as broth, is very similar to a meat stock. The difference is stock is slowly cooked to extract as much flavour as possible and used as an ingredient in a dish (for example stews or sauces), whereas bouillon and broth are served alone (like in this recipe).
- You can use chicken leg meat rather than breast, just make sure you take the meat off of the bone, this will allow the leg meat to cook through quicker (than on the bone). But check the meat before straining the bouillon, it might need a few minutes longer than the breast meat.
- Tempering the egg mixture is essential before pouring into the hot bouillon. Basically it slowly raises the temperature of the egg up, which prevents it from scrambling.
- As I mentioned already in instructions, it is important to not to boil the finished soup. Yes, we have tempered the egg mixture, but if the temperature of the soup gets too high, the egg will scramble anyway, so you have to keep an eye on it when heating up before serving.
