Avgolemono Soup

Ingredients

• 3lbs Stewing Chicken – thawed (or a few quail)
• 3qts Water
• 1 TBS salt
• 3/4 cup Manestra (aka orzo: found in pasta section)

Broth

• 8 whole eggs
• 1 tbsp water
• 1 cup (about 5 lemons) strained lemon juice

Directions

1. In a large pot, cover chicken with water, add salt and cook for about 2 hours.
2. When meat is tender, remove fowl and add enough water to make 3 quarts of liquid.
3. Bring this Liquid to a boil and then add Manestra (orzo).
4. Boil gently (simmer) for 25 minutes.
5. When there is 10 min left, prepare sauce by beating the eggs and water until very light, then add lemon juice and beat that shit silly.
6. Slowly (a bit at a time), add 3-4 cups of hot broth to egg mixture (to temper it)
7. The orzo should be done, turn off heat and add the egg mixture to the broth while stirring.
8. Serve Hot with plenty of fresh-ground black pepper and salt to taste.

Notes

• A “stew or boiling” chicken is usually found in the frozen section (as is quail) of a meat department. Make sure any giblets inside are taken out.
• The tempering of the eggs is very important, otherwise the soup will break – still good, but looks bad. How bad? Imagine convincing people that something like afterbirth is really de-li-ci-ous-so!
• This can be frozen for a few weeks.
• If you can pull this off, you can pull off a hollandaise and visa-versa.
• On another note, Orzo is a pasta, and a very forgiving one, at that. Next time you want paella, but don’t want to stir a large pan forever, remember this. The texture is nearly identical.

“Every culture has their own Chicken Soup, the Greeks did a pretty bang-on job with theirs.”

– Love, Jimi

[ For Yaya (Efthia) & Mom (Peggy) ]