Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Eat This: Greek Lemon Chicken Soup

If I was going to marry a soup--it would be this one.  That's how much I love it.  It so luscious without being overbearing, hearty without being heavy, healthy without hitting you over the head with how wholesome it tastes.  It was actually inspired by a soup I once had at the now defunct Figlio restaurant here (oh, how I miss Figlio)--it was this silky, lemony soup with a touch of basil.  Then I found a recipe for a lemon chicken soup and worked from there to try to recreate what I once had at Figlio--and this is pretty close.  I did go for the traditional greek addition of dill rather than basil (but it is just as good with basil if you would rather, so feel free to use it if you have it).
Of course, you can make other substitutions, like white rice instead of brown (you will just need less cooking time for the rice), more veggies, or even more chicken and rice if you want this to become almost stew-like.  I do recommend making your own chicken broth--I have a recipe for how to do that with old chicken bones here.
This soup is mostly easy to make.  The trickiest part is just whisking the 2 cups of hot broth into the lemon-egg mixture so the eggs will not curdle--but even this isn't all that tricky.  You just need to get a good brisk whisking action going before you pour in the broth.  And the best part is when you add the eggs mixture to the soup--it is like magic how it suddenly takes on this lovely muted color and the texture becomes just a little thicker and a whole lot creamier...
If there is one soup I recommend you try yet while it is still winter around this part of the world--it is this one.  Really.  You won't regret it.  

10 comments:

WhingingNinja said...

oh that looks heaven too bad my other half doesn't eat chicken. Is its freezable if I make it for myself? maybe I'll halve the quantities... looks fab though

Unknown said...

Oh how I love avgolemeno! Can't wait to try your version!

Larissa Holland said...

You had me with the post title really. I love me some soup. Thank you!

Carrie Mesrobian said...

I'm having Adrian make this. I also LOVE this soup! Remember when I made some for us and it spilled all over the floor! The sadness...

Lesa said...

This looks fantastic. I just have one question -- when do you add the chicken? I'm thinking I'd do it when I add the veggies.

Holly said...

Guess I left that bit out of the recipe--whoops. I add the chicken just before I add the lemon egg mixture. The chicken should already be cooked so you really only need to warm it.

Amie Plumley said...

umm...you make this sound oh-so-good I think I will need to try it!

Holly said...

Hey--given that I forgot to add the instruction about putting the chicken into the soup--well, I amended the recipe download to include that so rest assured that is covered. Also, thanks to all of you for your patience and for taking time to let me know when I have errors in my downloads--I appreciate this. My copy editing is pretty hack given the quantity of distractions at any given moment around here...

Larissa Holland said...

Made it! It's delicious! You are right about the egg magic. Mine got super thick, like stew. I think it might have been the Jasmine rice. I didn't have brown. I'll add less next time. Thanks again for good soup night.

Amanda Pedro said...

we made it this past weekend. It's great! And yes, add some water or chicken stock with the left overs.
Thanks for a new cozy recipe.