Avgolemono

By now, you may have noticed that I love easy, quick meals. So when I realized I only had a few items in my refrigerator to make dinner with – eggs, chicken and lemons – and I was too lazy to run to the store, I had to get creative. I remembered the Greek, chicken lemon soup, called "avgolemono" my friend Kiki had brought over once when I had the flu, and called her for the recipe.



I thought my Cream of Mushroom Chicken Bake was the easiest and best tasting recipe of all time, but this avgolemono soup has it beat! As Kiki says, "Greeks love making it because there is such a big return on the low effort."

Let's just say I was not expecting the response I got from a meal born out of laziness, that I threw together half heartedly with so few ingredients.

My husband demanded I make this soup every week, saying it was the one of the best things I've ever made. My kids ate it up and begged for more and we all fought for the last spoonful from the pot. They even asked me to make it again the next day (this is from a family that hates leftovers – my little one wanted to open a restaurant called "Leftovers", so we could serve them to customers and never have to eat them again).

Add plenty of black pepper to this soup. You can use brown basmati rice if you prefer. It's best to juice the lemons with a juicer, rather than by hand to extract all the juice. If you squeeze the lemon by hand, you may need to add more lemon. Best served with sliced bread on a cold night.

Avgolemono

4 whole chicken breasts with bone, skin removed

6 cups water

1/2 cup rice

1 large lemon (or 2 small), juiced thoroughly

2 large eggs

3 teaspoons salt

freshly ground black pepper

Take lemon out of the refrigerator. Crack the eggs into a large bowl and allow them to come to room temperature while broth cooks. Set aside.

Boil chicken pieces and rice in the 6 cups of water, until cooked. Transfer chicken to another bowl to cool.

Add lemon, salt and plenty of black pepper to the broth. Turn off heat.  

Whisk eggs, and while whisking quickly pour about a cup of hot broth into the eggs in a slow stream (this is to avoid cooking the eggs). Add a couple more cups of broth in the same manner, and then add the egg and broth mixture back to your soup pot as you continue to whisk the broth in the pot quickly. Failure to whisk quickly during this whole process will result in scrambled eggs! Shred chicken and add to the soup.

Serve hot with fresh bread.

Reheat gently... boiling will cause the soup to curdle.