And so naturally, she had a good number of egg yolks left over -- 7 of them.
Today, when I got home from teaching my summer literature course, I thought I would browse the internet and find some recipes that called for egg yolks as an ingredient. I had made eggs benedict before, but we didn’t have any other ingredients necessary for that except for the egg yolks. I could have made some ice cream, but that wouldn’t have used all the eggs, and besides, that would mean we would have to wait for the core of the ice cream maker to freeze.
What to do? Google!
And so I did, and I came across a site that provided numerous recipes, both savory and sweet, that called for egg yolks. The very last recipe called for 8 egg yolks, and it was for something I had never heard of, something called Avgolemono. Apparently, this greek soup is quite simple: egg yolks, lemon juice, broth, and rice.
Here is the basic recipe I followed taken from epicurious.com:
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Avgolemono-15607
Ingredients:
4 cups basic chicken stock [for a vegetarian soup, use Garlic Broth ]
6 tablespoons (90 g) Carolina or other long-grain white rice
8 egg yolks
1/4 cup (65 ml) fresh lemon juice
coarse salt, to taste
freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Preparation:
In a medium saucepan, bring the stock to a boil. Stir in the rice and cook until tender, about 8 to 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, beat the egg yolks and lemon juice together in a large bowl.
When the rice is tender, slowly ladle half of the hot broth into the yolks to temper them, whisking constantly. Whisk the egg yolk mixture into the broth and place over low heat. Cook, stirring constantly, just long enough to thicken the soup. Do not boil. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
This was so easy to make. The most difficult part was tempering the eggs, but even that was not that difficult.
I did make some modifications.
✓ I used some leftover quinoa from the day before (Inca Red variety) and used it in place of the rice. And so, when I “finished” the dish, I poured the broth over the quinoa in bowl and let the broth heat it up.
✓ I didn’t add salt because I was using chicken broth that already had plenty of salt. Plus, the quinoa from the day before had been cooked in the same broth and would add that flavor/salt as well.
✓ I only had 7 egg yolks, and the soup didn’t come out as thick as I thought. I have read, however, that the thickness varies from recipe to recipe. I may have wanted it a bit thicker; maybe next time I’ll add some corn starch or beat the egg whites separately to thicken it.
✓ I added other fresh herbs from our garden beyond the dill called for in the recipe: purple basil, sweet basil, and oregano, all of which were added in the cooking process and later garnished the bowl.
✓ In addition to the herbs, I added some fresh snow peas and a few pieces of fresh pole beans (again, from our garden!) and about 1/4 of cup of diced yellow bell pepper and leftover grilled chicken.
The girls didn’t like it, but Heidi and I thought it was quite tasty. It did have a tang to it because of the lemon, but the fresh herbs helped to balance that out: the oregano added a slight spiciness and the basil and dill helped pull back on the tanginess. From what I gleaned online, this base stock has many uses.
Oh, and I can’t forget this picture of the final product!
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