Cooking with the Ghost #1: Making One of My Favorite Soups
Making avgolemono
Dear reader,
I threw together one of my favorite soups a few nights ago without a recipe and was really proud of how it turned out! I’ve made this one from scratch before and it always turns out a little different, but I think I really got it right this time around!
This is a delightful soup commonly made with chicken, orzo, lemon, dill, and egg as the primary ingredients that come to mind when I think of the soup.
Note: However, based on some quick research, it looks like this can be both a sauce or a soup.
What I Did (Or, Not Exactly a Recipe But Sort of a Recipe)
Ingredients I Used
Half a box of 1-lb box of orzo (so about 1/2 lb. in this recipe)
Juice from 1 lemon
1 lb. of chicken
2 eggs
Half a bulb of fennel
1 small yellow onion
2 or 3 cloves of garlic
Paprika
Fresh dill (lots!)
Salt and pepper (to taste)
About 4 cups of water
About 2 TBS veggie bouillon paste
When you boil down veggie stock long enough, it turns into a paste that you can use like a bouillon cube by reconstituting with water
Red pepper flakes (optional, to taste)
Note: If you see “to taste” in a recipe, like “add salt and pepper to taste,” this just means to taste the recipe and add a little salt and pepper as you see fit. It just means that if you think it needs more of an ingredient for it to taste better for you, add it! It’s to your taste!
Materials I Used
Large cooking spoon to stir while cooking (wooden spoon, silicone spoon, etc.)
Large pot for cooking the veggies and chicken (I used a cast iron Dutch oven)
Cutting board to chop veggies and chicken (do not use a wooden cutting board if you are cutting raw meat, poultry, or fish; the wood can soak up the raw meat liquid!)
Large pot for cooking pasta (I used a stainless steel pot)
Strainer or colander to drain the pasta (or a pot with a strainer lid)
Whisk (or fork) to whisk the eggs
Medium-sized bowl for the eggs
Bowl(s) or mug(s) and spoon(s) to serve
How I Made the Soup
I cooked the orzo according to the package directions, cooking for about 7-9 minutes then draining. (I was using the other half of a box I had left from another recipe.) I then set the cooked orzo aside.
I roughly cubed the chicken, fennel, and onion. I minced the garlic, roughly chopped the dill, and juiced the lemon. I set all these ingredients aside.
I cooked the chicken, fennel, and onion over medium heat on the stove until the fennel and onions were translucent and the chicken was beginning to brown.
I then added the garlic and cooked for a a few minutes more, then threw in the dill in bunches and stirred well.
I seasoned the chicken, fennel, onion, and garlic mixture in the pot with the paprika, salt, and pepper then stirred to combine.
I then poured in the water and veggie paste/bouillon (to make chicken broth) and stirred vigorously to deglaze the pot. (If you were to make this, you could just use chicken broth.)
Deglazing gets all the nice fond (the bits of browned meat, veggies, spices, etc. forming a layer on the bottom of the inside of the pot) to come away from the bottom and incorporate nicely into the meal. This also makes your pot easier to clean later since there isn’t all that wasted fond at the bottom of the pan when you’re done! Tasty and efficient!
While I let the mixture come to a simmer in the pot, I cracked two eggs into a medium-sized bowl and whisked vigorously. (Tip: If you don’t have a whisk, a fork works basically just as well!)
Once the mixture in the pot had come to a simmer, I slowly spooned a small amount into the bowl of whisked eggs and whisked the egg-soup mixture vigorously without stopping to temper the eggs.
Tempering is a technique that allows you to add a cooler liquid ingredient, like whisked eggs, into a hotter liquid ingredient, like simmering soup, without creating an undesired texture. The goal of tempering the eggs in this dish is 1) so the eggs do not immediately cook upon impact when they touch the hot soup and 2) to make the soup creamier and more homogenous.
I spooned a few more scoops of soup slowly into the egg mixture until I could feel the mixture start to feel a little warm against the side of the egg bowl so that the egg-soup mixture was tempered properly.
You can tell you’ve tempered the eggs enough when the sides of the bowl the eggs are in have begun to feel a little warm, meaning that the liquid inside has warmed to an appropriate temperature that you can now add all of the egg-soup mixture into the pot with the rest of the soup!
Once the eggs were tempered, I added all of the egg-soup mixture into the pot with the rest of the soup and stirred.
I then added the cooked orzo to the pot and stirred again.
I tasted the soup and then added finishing touches, like adding a few pinches of salt and a few shakes of red pepper flakes.
It’s a really delightful soup! It feels both light and quite filling, making it great as both a light spring or summer soup and a comforting hot soup in the fall or winter.
I’ve been working on making it just right for years and I think I might be on the right track! Do you have any other versions you’d recommend, alternative ingredients, or preparation methods you’d like to share? Any other great comfort soups?
Thanks so much for stopping by!
-Olivia
Quote of the Week
“The customer is always right in matters of taste.”
-Attributed to Harry Gordon Selfridge
It appears that this phrase was popularized in the 1900s, but this particular word choice is attributed to this business magnate based on a quick Internet search. However, upon looking deeper, it seems that Selfridge may have simply popularized “the customer is always right,” but I haven’t found evidence pointing to him or anyone else saying the full quote. This may be a phrase that became so oft-repeated that we may never know its true originator, as with many quotes!
See here and here for further reading on the murky origins of the quote.
The “to taste” explanation reminded me of this quote, so I decided to include it as the quote of the week here.
Yummy!😋