Avgolemono Soup

Please welcome Hank Shaw as he shares his quick and easy version of the Greek classic avgolemono soup, a chicken soup with lemon and egg. ~Elise

The mixture of eggs, lemon and hot broth is a classic combination in Greek cooking. And if there is a classic dish that highlights this combination, it is the chickeny avgolemono soup. Avgo-wha? Ah-vo-LEMEN-o, or at least that's how I remember the Greeks at the local diner in New Jersey saying it. The "g" isn't always pronounced.

Like gumbo, goulash or chili, there are untold versions of this soup. Some, like this one, have bits of chicken in them. Some start with a whole chicken and take hours. A few have nothing more than chicken broth and the egg-lemon sauce. Most, however, have a starch such as rice or orzo pasta.

The key to avgolemono is the egg-lemon sauce. It is what make this version of chicken soup special. What starts as a pretty ordinary mix of chicken, onions, pasta and broth becomes silky, tangy and unforgettable.

This is a weeknight version of avgolemono, one you can whip together in less than 30 minutes; some versions take all day. The only tricky part of this whole recipe is when you add the egg-lemon mixture: You need to temper the eggs so they don't scramble when you add them to the hot broth. But this is not rocket science, and if you can whisk with one hand and pour with the other you are good to go. And if you can't? Find a helper. Kids love to help cooking, so maybe ask your daughter or son to whisk while you pour. Or vice versa.

One thing about this soup: Never let it boil once you've added the egg-lemon mixture. The soup can break and you essentially get a Greek version of egg drop soup. Still edible, but ugly. Same goes for reheating leftovers: Do it gently, and don't let the soup boil.

Avgolemono Soup Recipe

• Prep time: 10 minutes
• Cook time: 25 minutes

Either rice or orzo pasta are fine here, so use whichever you prefer. And be sure to dice the chicken breast pretty small -- about 1/4 inch cubes -- so the meat cooks through in just a few minutes.

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INGREDIENTS

• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 cup chopped onion
• 5 cups chicken stock, plus 1 cup water
• 1/2 cup orzo or rice
• 1 pound skinless chicken breast, diced
• Salt
• 3 Tbsp lemon juice
• 3 eggs
• Fresh parsley for garnish

METHOD

1 Heat the olive oil in a medium pot and saute the onions over medium-high heat until they are soft and translucent, 4-5 minutes. While the onions are cooking, bring another pot of salted water to a boil and add the orzo or rice.

2 When the onions are ready, add the chicken stock and water and bring to a bare simmer. When the orzo or rice is nearly done — firm, but mostly cooked — drain the boiling water and add the pasta or rice to the chicken broth. Add the diced chicken breast to the pot. Let this cook 5-8 minutes, then taste the soup for salt.

3 Beat the eggs in a bowl. Whisking constantly, add the lemon juice to the eggs. You will need to temper the eggs before you add the egg-lemon mixture to the soup. It takes both hands to do this. With one hand, whisk the egg-lemon mixture vigorously. With the other, slowly pour in a ladle's worth of hot broth. Do this at least twice, and you can add as many ladle's worth of broth as you want to the mixture.

4 Turn the heat off the soup. Whisk the soup with one hand while you pour the hot egg-lemon mixture in with the other. Serve at once, garnished with parsley.

Yield: Serves 6-8.

Buttery Tomato Pasta

About once a week, for my entire upbringing, my mother would prepare a very simple side of pasta with a sweet, buttery tomato sauce. Usually she used elbow macaroni pasta, because usually a small bowl of tomato pasta would be served alongside tuna macaroni salad, our standard Catholic fish-on-Fridays family meal. Mom would just make extra macaroni and stir in the tomato sauce for it. She did this because my dad requested it, and he wanted it because that's what his mother in Minnesota used to make for him. Oddly, the hot buttery tomato pasta was, and still is, a perfect taste complement to the cool, crunchy, acidic tuna salad.

This is my father's comfort food. Mom made it the other day with corkscrew pasta instead of elbow macaroni and I liked the way that the ridges in the corkscrews capture the sauce better. Apparently, a simple tomato sauce cooked with butter instead of olive oil is a classic in Italian cuisine. (News to us, my grandmother was German Austrian!) If you haven't tried making tomato sauce with butter, I recommend it. It's actually crazy good. We add a bit sugar to the sauce, because the sauce just tastes better to us when it's sweeter. My mother also adds a little bit of fresh or dried basil, not much, just a pinch. Not so much that you get distracted from the sweet, buttery tomatoes.

Buttery Tomato Pasta Recipe

• Prep time: 5 minutes
• Cook time: 20 minutes

My mom insists that the trick to the tomatoes is the sugar, and I agree. Tomatoes are naturally acidic. You need to add sugar to balance the acidity and this particular dish should be a little on the sweet side, which is why we add sugar. Use the best quality canned tomatoes available. We recommend Muir Glen brand or San Marzano. The sauce has so few ingredients, it's important that the tomatoes you use are high quality. Cheap, generic canned tomatoes just will not taste as good.

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INGREDIENTS

• 1/2 pound of fusilli pasta or elbow macaroni
• 1 14 ounce can of good quality whole tomatoes
• 2 Tbsp butter
• 2 teaspoons sugar (more or less to taste)
• Salt
• Pepper
• Pinch of dried basil or fresh sliced basil (optional)

METHOD

1 Half fill a 4 quart pot with water. Add a tablespoon of salt. Bring salted water to boil. Add pasta. Cook until al dente, tender but still a little firm.

2 While the pasta water is heating and the pasta is cooking, prepare the tomatoes. Shred the canned whole tomatoes with your fingers as you put them in a small saucepan. Add any tomato juice left in the can to the pot. Add the butter. Heat to a simmer and stir to melt the butter. Simmer gently while the pasta is cooking. Stir in sugar, salt, and pepper to taste. If you have fresh basil, thinly slice a couple leaves and stir in. If not, if you want you can add a pinch of dried basil.

3 When the pasta is done, drain it. Stir in the cooked tomatoes and put in a serving bowl.

Serve immediately.

Yield: Serves 4.

Saffron Rice Pilaf

When my friend Kerissa Barron first told me about this buttery rice pilaf, I couldn't wait to try it. Then she told me it had saffron in it. Uh oh. For some reason, saffron is a spice that sort of tastes like soap to me. Not a big fan. But, I'll try just about anything once, and in this case, thank goodness. I couldn't stop eating this rice. Browned in clarified butter, with cinnamon, cardamom, and cloves, cooked in a saffron infusion, and tossed with nuts and raisins, this rice is the bomb.

Kerissa came over the other day to make it with me. Here's what she says about it:

Throughout college and beyond, I've always loved spending time at my friend Heather's family home. While it doesn't hurt that her family lives on a gorgeous bluff overlooking sunny Santa Barbara, or that they keep one of those pantries any cook dreams of, stocked with every size and shape of pan imaginable and five types of baking cocoa, I think one of my fondest memories and one of the many reasons I'm always finding/inventing a reason to visit, is this golden, buttery, delicious rice. I've had it on nearly every occasion I've visited and with good reason. Whether you are making it to accompany a homemade Indian feast or simply serving alongside a roast chicken from the supermarket, this rice, specked with nuts and raisins, imbued with the golden color of saffron, and fragranced with cardamom, cinnamon, clove and orange can truly hold its own.

Saffron Rice Pilaf Recipe

• Prep time: 10 minutes
• Cook time: 40 minutes

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INGREDIENTS

• 1/2 teaspoon of saffron threads
• 2 Tbsp ghee or clarified butter*
• 4 cardamom pods
• 1 small (2-inch) cinnamon stick
• 4 whole cloves
• 10 black peppercorns
• 2 1/2 cups long grain white rice**
• 2 teaspoons Kosher salt
• Zest of one orange (about 1 1/2 teaspoons, packed)
• 2 Tbsp pistachios
• 2 Tbsp blanched slivered or sliced almonds
• 2 Tbsp golden raisins

*To make clarified butter for this recipe, melt 4 tablespoons of sliced unsalted butter in a small saucepan on medium heat. Let the butter foam up, which releases its moisture. When the foaming subsides a bit, you may see solids in the melted butter beginning to brown, remove from heat and pour through a fine mesh sieve lined with cheesecloth or a paper towel (to strain out the solids) into a bowl.

**Sometimes depending on how the rice was packed, it will need to be rinsed before cooking, especially rice that you buy in large bulk bags. If there is powdery stuff around the rice, you'll need to rinse it. If this is the case with your rice, rinse it until the rinsing water runs clear, and spread the rice out to dry on a large baking sheet. Make sure it is completely dry before frying.

METHOD

1 Heat a large kettle of water (a little more than a quart) to boiling. Place saffron in a small bowl, cover with 2 Tbsp of the hot water, set aside.

2 Heat 2 tablespoons of ghee or clarified butter in a 2 quart, thick-bottomed saucepan on medium-high heat until hot. Add the cardamom pods, cinnamon stick, cloves, and peppercorns to the pan. Gently fry the spices for 2 minutes.

3 Add rice, and fry for 3 more minutes, stirring after a minute or two. Some of the rice should brown at the bottom of the pan. Remove the pan from heat. Add four cups of the hot water you prepared in step one to the pan, taking care to add slowly as it may bubble up and splatter. Add two teaspoons of salt. Add the saffron threads and their soaking liquid. Add the orange zest. Stir, bring quickly to a boil, reduce the heat to the lowest setting. Cover tightly and cook for 20 minutes.

4 While the rice is cooking, in a small frying pan, heat on medium high heat and add the pistachios and slivered almonds. Toast until lightly browned, about 3 or 4 minutes, remove from pan into a bowl.

5 After 20 minutes, remove the lid from the rice, pick out the spices that have floated to the top of the rice - the cinnamon stick, any whole cardamom pods, black peppercorns or cloves. Scatter golden raisins over the top of the rice. Replace the lid and cook for 5 more minutes.

6 Stir in the toasted almonds and pistachios.

Serve.

Yield: Serves 5 to 6.