Avgolemono

Last night I traded a hunk of salmon with a friend for some fresh eggs from her backyard chickens. This new acquisition called for an egg-central dish, but having just made a quiche I needed something different and preferably summery. Hence, Avgolemono.

Avgolemono is a Greek lemony egg soup with a chicken broth base and orzo pasta. As I am not from the Greek Islands, I headed to Epicurious to find a suitable recipe. There is considerable debate there over authenticity and the requisite amount of tanginess and frothiness. I settled on a recipe posted in the review section from someone by the moniker A Cook in Boston who seemed to have the most support from fellow Epicureans. I couldn't for the life of me find orzo on Kodiak so I picked up some long grain white rice from the bulk foods section of Cactus Flats.

Let me say, I loved this dish. The lemon hits you first, and it is quite tangy, but there's a palatable richness to the eggs that is lovely. The rice made it a meal. As a summer dish, it is excellent served cold.

Avgolemono

8 cups chicken broth
1 cup of long grain white rice
4 eggs, white and yolks separated
Juice of 3 lemons
freshly ground black pepper

Bring chicken broth to a boil, add the rice and simmer, covered, for 20 minutes. Whip the egg whites until the medium peaks stage (I used my kitchen-aid). Add the yolks and beat continuously. Add the lemon juice, beating. Withdraw 2 cups of broth and add to the eggs in a slow continuous stream, beating quickly to avoid curdling. Add egg mixture back to remaining broth, remove from heat and serve. Garnish with black pepper.

Note: soup will be rather frothy at first. It will settle and thicken as it rests off the heat.


Extra Garnish
A warning - if you are an avgolemono purist you will not like this next part. I had some leftover chopped spruce tips from an experiment making spruce tip salt for smoking fish (more on that later - if it works out). Sitka spruce tips are harvestable in late spring and most frequently made into jelly, tea or beer (our local radio station has a new music show called Spruce Tip Brew). I've also talked to folks who use it as a substitute for dill when curing fish (as in gravlax). I thought the citrus resin flavor of the spruce tips would be a nice touch. I added just a pinch, as you can see from the top photo, and was happy with the results.

June spruce tips in my backyard ready for pickin'.