Avgolemono Soup!
Awesome, and Greek, but I repeat myself…
Today I put a small, washed chicken, in a pot with salt, some bay leaves, a generous crack of pepper, and enough water to cover by about 1.5 inches.
Medium heat for 90 minutes, internal temperature got to 175F (165F is the minimum). I moved the chicken to a bowl, strained the broth into another bowl, and set everything aside for later use. It looks like I have about 3 litres of amazing chicken broth, and yes, I skipped the mirepoix section. Today is extra simple!
Boiling the rice, cooking the onions, adding the things, and I’ll pay extra attention to the sauce that elevates this from a basic chicken&rice soup to one of the most amazing and easiest soups known to mankind. Greek!
Since the chicken is already cooked, the rest will take 30-45 minutes, depending on how long it takes to boil the rice.
Add 90 minutes for the total time start-to-finish, but that 90 minutes doesn’t need any interaction.
Avgolemono soup
Ingredients
Chicken and stock - see instruction
- 2 tbsp butter
- 1 cup each of diced carrot, celery, onion
- 2 whole bay leavess
- 1 tsp salt
- 3 liters Water, or chicken broth/stock if you can.
- 1 whole chicken - approx 3 pounds, or 2-ish cups cooked and shredded
Soup
- 2/3 cup rice, washed
- 1 tbsp butter
- 1 cup diced onion
- 2 cups cooked, shredded chicken
Avgolemono Sauce
- 3 eggs room temperature
- 1/2 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
- 1 cup hot broth from the soup pot
Instructions
Chicken and stock
- If you already have 2 liters stock (you can do 50-50 water) and around 2 cups of shredded chicken, skip this section.
- Over medium heat, melt the butter, sautee the carrots for 3-4 minutes, add celery and sautee for 3-4 minutes, then the onions for another 3-4 minutes.
- Add 3 liters of chicken water/broth/stock, bay leaves, sliced garlic, salt, and stir well.
- Add the chicken, increase temp to medium-high.
- Boil and cover for 60-90 minutes until internal temperature is 165F and the meat is falling off the bones.
- Strain out the solids.
- Set the meat aside, and shred up 2 cups.
Soup Base
- In a large pot, bring the stock, and rice to a boil, reduce heat to medium, cover, and simmer for 20 minutes, or until the rice is cooked.
- Meanwhile, heat the butter and caramelize the diced onions, and add them to the simmering soup when ready.
- Also meanwhile, shred up the chicken if needed, and add it to the soup.
Avgolemono sauce
- Whisk up the eggs with the pepper.
- Keep whisking, and slowly add the lemon juice.
- Keep whisking, and very slowly add the hot broth, 1/4 cup at a time.
- Once everything is fully incorporated, pour the sauce into the soup pot.
- Stir the sauce into the soup, remove from heat, cover, and let sit 5 minutes.
Notes
If you have a helper, you can do it all with a whisk, but a hand mixer on low works just fine.
Beat the eggs well, and I can't stress enough that you need to slowly incorporate the lemon, and even more slowly incorporate the broth.
We're not making scrambled eggs or egg-drop soup, so keeping the eggs whisked the entire time is necessary.