Let's Eat: Avgolemono
Or, how a pandemic-induced list-making habit was born and a long-standing phobia was faced.
I hadn’t planned on posting another soup recipe so soon after I posted the escarole soup recipe, but, and I mentioned in a recent post, I am trying to I become more mindful of the way I do things and spend my time (and money). So, last week after a busy day, I didn’t really feel like cooking.
One of the ways I’ve been prompting myself to become more mindful is to not give in to every single cooking impulse I have. These normally happen around dinner time, and many times the thing I am in the mood to cook is either missing an ingredient, or I realize that a part of it is sitting frozen in the freezer. To try to combat that, and to get better organized, I decided to keep a running list (I am a Virgo after all) of everything I had in my freezer. When something new goes in, it goes on the list. When some gets taken out and cooked, it gets struck from the list.
Now, this might sound insane, as in “who has the time to do that?”, but it has actually helped quite a bit. It’s not like I keep a spreadsheet or anything, I keep a small spiral notebook on my counter next to my fruit bowl and my grocery list. It’s something I started doing during the pandemic when grocery stores were scary, chicken was hard to find, and survival skills were honed. One day, tired of bread-making and doom-scrolling, I opened the freezer and realized I had no idea what half of what was in there was. I generally will add a post-it or a sharpie note on things I freeze, but what the hell was all the way in the back or on the bottom of that stacked pile, I had no way of knowing.
So, with nothing better to do on that day, I decided to empty, reorganize, and yes, catalog everything that was in the freezer.
What I realized after I cataloged everything was that there are a number of staples I always have on hand, and there are a couple of recipes that are so easy and so delicious that they deserve the title of go-to recipes (I think I just hit on another list idea!). Avgolemono is one of those recipes and set of ingredients.
I hate eggs. Actually, it’s not really hate as much as it is a psychological block I have about them. I think it stems from the fact that as a kid I was told I was allergic to them. No one really remembers what doctor said that, or what happened as a kid when I ate them, but that was the story that I grew up with, and I was sticking to it*.
The first time I had avgolemono I had no idea what I was eating. I thought I had ordered “Greek cream of chicken” soup as it was presented on the menu of a local, popular restaurant. It was delicious and became a must-order for me any time I went there.
So, it was one night that I was craving this soup one night and decided to give making it at home a shot. After a quick Google search for a recipe, I discovered the cold, hard truth. To my surprise, it had become evident that the creamy deliciousness of this soup was not delivered by cream or milk, it was accomplished with my #1 food nemesis: EGGs.
After my initial horror wore off, I realized there were a couple of good things that came out of this weird moment of cognitive dissonance: The soup was actually a bit healthier with the eggs than with the cream and it was a step to maybe, possibly getting over my ovo-phobia**.
This recipe is simple, except for one tricky step: tempering the eggs with hot chicken broth. If you go slow, you should get the hang of it pretty easily. If you’re looking for a delicious, low-ingredient, pretty easy-to-make soup that satisfies, give it a shot.
Ingredients:
1 cup uncooked rice
1 to 1 1/2-quart chicken stock (have some extra on hand to get the texture you want)
1 cup fresh-squeezed lemon juice (3-5 lemons depending on size)
2 eggs
Cooked chicken (rotisserie chicken is great for this recipe)
Fresh parsley
Salt and pepper to taste
Steps:
Bring one quart chicken stock to a boil in a soup (or other similarly large) pot.
While the stock heats, juice the lemons. Remove any seeds from the juice.
While the stock heats, crack the eggs into a heat-safe glass bowl and mix with a fork or a whisk until well-blended. Use a bowl that can hold more liquid than just the eggs because you will be tempering the eggs with the hot stock and adding the lemon juice into this one vessel.
When the stock boils, add the rice, give it a quick mix, cover, and lower the heat.
Add the lemon juice to the eggs and blend with a whisk.
***Here comes the tricky part: the tempering of the egg mixture with the hot stock. Get some tempering tips here.***Ladle one scoop of the hot broth - slowly - into the egg and lemon mixture - while at the same time whisking the eggs and lemon to simultaneously mix it together (keep whisking the whole time), lower the temp of the broth, and heat the eggs and lemon. The goal is to NOT SCRAMBLE THE EGGS as you do this. Start slow until you get the hang of it and be careful not to burn yourself with the hot stock.
Continue slowly tempering the eggs (4-5 more ladles) until the stock, eggs, and lemon are fully mixed. You should have a silky, mixture that does not have chunks of cooked egg.
Check the remainder of the pot with the stock and the rice. Give it a quick mix and add more stock if necessary and let it heat back up.
When the rice is cooked (should take about 20-25 minutes from the time you add it to the pot) and the stock is at a medium heat, slowly ladle the egg, lemon, and stock mixture back into the pot, whisking the entire time. The egg mixture should still be warm.
Let the pot simmer for another 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally. The soup should thicken as the egg mixture (and the starch from the rice) combine and heat back up. Don’t boil it at this stage, just let it simmer.
Add your cooked chicken, allow it to warm through and add salt and pepper to taste.
Serve in a bowl and garnish with fresh, chopped parsley.
Enjoy!
Yum in a bowl.
* The reality is that I knew as an adult that I was not officially allergic. I have always been able to eat things with eggs cooked into it. The ick comes when it is just the eggs on their own: scrambled, omelettes, fried rice, anything Française, even the crispy, eggy edges on French toast are no-nos for me. I even did a food challenge with an allergist.
** Spoiler alert: It didn’t work. I tried, but couldn’t even do an omelette in Paris (my self-administered, non-allergist food challenge). To this day, I remain an ovo-phobe.
© 2023 Kim Selby. All rights reserved.
All photography © Kim Selby unless otherwise credited.