Kotosoupa avgolemono

The story

Avgolemono, a creamy soup of chicken, rice, eggs, and lemon, is as much a technique as a recipe: clear chicken broth is brought together with a mixture of beaten egg yolks and lemon juice gradually, spoonful by spoonful, while the soup is slowly stirred. It is a process that demands attention, because adding too much hot broth to the eggs, or adding it too fast, can curdle the yolks instead of melting them into a smooth, creamy texture. This method of tempering eggs is common to nearly all Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cooking, but the combination with lemon is distinctively Greek, and it appears in other dishes too, as avgolemono sauce for vegetables and meat. The soup is served as a light opening to the holiday meal, its fresh acidity preparing the palate for the richer dishes that follow. For Greek families in the diaspora, avgolemono is often the first dish children learn to make because, for all the care the tempering requires, the ingredients are simple and always available, even outside Greece.