Avgolemono — Greek Lemon Chicken Soup
This recipe comes from Elena Paravantes. This is her mother’s authentic recipe for this comforting and delicious Greek chicken-rice soup, avgolemono soup. Rice and chicken are enriched with the rich and creamy lemon-egg sauce.
Listen here for her previous episode on the Kefi L!fe Podcast!
INGREDIENTS
1 ½ pounds (700 g) chicken pieces with skin & bone
1 bunch celery leaves (or 2 celery sticks)
1 bay leaf
2-3 medium carrots, peeled
1 medium red onion, quartered
½ - ¾ cup (90-135 g) uncooked short grain rice (amount varies, please see recipe)
2 whole eggs, room temperature
Juice of 2 lemons
Salt/Pepper as needed
2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley (optional for garnish)
DIRECTIONS
Place the chicken in a large pot with celery leaves, carrots, onion and the bay leaf. Add enough hot water (I measure how much water I add so that I can calculate how much rice to add later- I needed 8 cups of water) to cover the chicken. Ideally the water should already be hot as it helps maintain the juices of the chicken. Simmer for about 1 ½ hour.
Once the chicken is cooked, remove and place on a plate along with the vegetables. Discard the onion, celery leaves and bay leaf. Keep the carrot. Leave broth in the pot.
Remove about 1 cup of broth and add the juice of 1 lemon to it-set aside.
Bring the rest of the broth to a simmer, add salt to taste and add the rice. Add 1 to 1 ½tablespoons of short grain rice per 1 cup broth depending on how thick you want the soup. By adding more rice, you will have a thicker soup. Lower heat and let it simmer for 15-20 minutes until rice is done. Turn off heat.
In the meantime, remove the skin from the chicken, add salt and pepper to taste and shred the chicken. Slice the carrot. Place shredded chicken pieces and sliced carrots in the soup, cover and set aside.
Make avgolemono sauce
Separate egg yolks and whites. In a small bowl add only the yolks and the juice of 1 lemon-do not mix and set aside.
In another large bowl add the whites, whip with a mixer until stiff peaks develop, add the yolks to the egg whites and mix on low until blended.
Now add the broth that you had set aside gradually to the egg mixture while mixing on very low-make sure broth is not hot otherwise it will cook the egg; it should be lukewarm. Add about 2 tablespoons at a time until you have used all the broth that you had set aside. *You may leave the chicken and carrots on a plate and serve separately.
Assemble the soup
Add the egg lemon broth mixture back in the pot to the rice and chicken. With a wooden smooth do about 2 swirls (do not mix more) to blend the soup with the avgolemono sauce. Heat, on very low heat for a few minutes to get soup warm.
Remove immediately from heat.
Serve warm. Season with black pepper and salt as needed. Sprinkle with chopped parsley (optional).