Mains
Avgolemono
Αυγολέμονο
Pronounced 'Ah-vgo-leh-mon-oh' , this soup is a Greek and Greek Cypriot classic. While chicken soup is a universal food that's found in cuisines around the world, every household has their own twist on it. A lemony chicken soup with rice may seem like a bizarre meal to those unfamiliar. But naysayers are quickly converted into yaysayers with this simple, tasty crowd pleaser. And in our family, eating it has become a sport. Years ago at Yiayia’s house, the tradition began where ‘soup races’ sought to find who could eat the most soup, the fastest. To this day, it is still widely contested on who is the fastest soup eater in the family. Though Peter will tell you it's him.
Main
Ingredients
- 1 whole chicken or 6 pieces
- of marylands
- 1 cup medium grain rice
- 3 eggs at room temperature
- 1 large lemon, juiced (2 lemons
- if you're Caitlin)
- 1 tablespoon salt
- Pinch of pepper
Method
- Put the chicken in a extra large pot and fill with cold water, ensuring that there is about 5cm of water above the chicken
- Heat the pot over a medium-high heat and boil the chicken for 1.5 hours, making sure to regularly remove the scum that floats to the top. Cook the chicken until the meat is effortlessly falling off the bone.
- Remove the chicken from the pot and place onto a large chopping board
- Pull apart the chicken into smaller pieces, ready to add back into the soup before serving. If you’re game like Caitlin and Peter you can eat the chicken skin, otherwise, discard all the yucky bits
- Add rice to the chicken stock
- Scoop a few ladels of the chicken stock out of the pot and put into a bowl to set aside to use later
- Taste your rice, and once it's nearly cooked, you can begin to prepare the froth
- In a large bowl, use an electric mixer or soup stick mixer to beat the eggs. Slowly add the lemon so that when the stock is added, the eggs don't curdle. Bit by bit, add in the stock you put aside earlier, continuing to beat the mixture. Keep beating for about 5 minutes, until all your stock is gone and the mixture becomes super frothy
- Check that your rice is cooked. If it is, lightly fold the froth into the soup, combining it but not allowing the mixture to lose its fluffiness. Add in salt, and extra lemon to taste. Some people add in a pinch of pepper, but this is up to you
- Make sure you keep some extra lemon juice aside so people can customise their soup’s sour level