Avgolemono, the Greek lemon and rice soup
The Greek soup that turns silky without any cream
Halves for one, though tempering a small amount of egg takes a steadier hand. Best eaten the day it is made, as reheating can split the sauce.
Avgolemono turns a plain chicken and rice soup into something silkier without adding a drop of cream, using nothing more than egg and lemon whisked together and brought up to temperature slowly. The trick is entirely in the tempering: pour the hot stock into the egg, not the egg into the stock, or you end up with broth full of little cooked threads instead of a smooth, pale sauce. Rice cooked long enough to lose any bite thickens the whole bowl as it sits, which suits a gut that needs help holding on to things. No dill, no black pepper, nothing but the lemon doing the brightening. Add the lemon a shade short of what you think you want, because it sharpens as the soup stands and the last spoonful should still taste of chicken.
Ingredients
Contains: Egg, Celery
- 900 mlclear chicken stock, strained clear, or a good stock cube
- 2chicken thigh fillets, skin removed
- 60 gwhite rice, rinsed
- 2eggs
- 3 tbsplemon juice, juice only, no zest or pith
- salt
Method
Bring the stock to a simmer in a large pan. Add the chicken thigh fillets and poach gently for 12 to 15 minutes, until cooked through with no pink left in the middle.
Lift the chicken out onto a plate. Tip the rice into the simmering stock and cook for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until every grain is fully soft with no bite left.
While the rice cooks, shred the chicken into small pieces with two forks, discarding any fat.
In a small bowl, whisk the eggs until smooth, then whisk in the lemon juice.
Take the pan off the heat. Ladle a cupful of the hot stock into the egg and lemon mixture in a thin stream, whisking constantly, so the eggs warm through gradually rather than cooking in lumps.
Pour the tempered mixture back into the pan in a thin stream, whisking the soup as you go, so it thickens into something silky rather than scrambling. Stir the shredded chicken back in and warm through gently over the lowest heat for a minute, without letting it boil.
Taste for salt, ladle into warm bowls and serve at once.
Watch-points
- Use a clear stock, strained if home-made, with nothing floating in it.
- Measure the lemon juice from the fruit itself. No zest, no pith, no whole segments anywhere near the pan.
- Take the pan off the heat before the egg and lemon mixture goes in, and bring it back only to a gentle warmth. If it boils, the egg scrambles instead of thickening the broth.
- There is raw-beaten egg going into this, so eat it the day it is made and keep any left over covered in the fridge for no more than a day. Warm it through gently rather than boiling it. If you are on chemotherapy, make only what you will eat at that meal.
Stoma note: A thickening bowl. The rice and egg both help bind loose output, so this suits a stoma or gut that is running fast more than one that needs the opposite.
Make it more nourishing
- Whisk in an extra egg yolk with the eggs for a silkier, richer sauce.
- Use 3 chicken thigh fillets instead of 2 for a heartier bowl.
- Stir a 15 g knob of butter through each bowl just before serving.
Swaps
- Instead of chicken thigh fillets, use a poached chicken breast, shredded
- leaner, though thigh stays moister through the poaching
- Instead of white rice, use orzo or another tiny white pasta
- a lighter bowl that thickens less, for a day when the rice feels heavy