Lekker: Avgolemono

Avgo-what? AV-GO-LEMONO. I know, I still can't really say it right. Apparently you don't really pronounce the "g" as a "g", it's more like a "y" sound that exists in Greek. Since I do not actually know Greek, I'm sort of at a loss--but I'm pronouncing it "av-yo-lem-ONO" in my head.

I assume you've gathered by this point that this dish involves lemon and that would be correct. It's a traditional Greek soup consisting of chicken and rice (or orzo) in an egg-lemon broth. Yeah, yeah, I'm at it again with soups. LOOK! I'm trying to slim back down after the sheer overindulgence of the holidays, and soups and salads are the best way to do that. Deal with it. Plus, it's snowy and cold up here and I slipped on a patch of ice on Friday, falling and cracking my tailbone--so I needed some comfort.

Plus, I had some rotisserie chicken left over from my Thai Chicken Noodle Soup the other night, and ballin' on a budget means nothing goes to waste around here.

I had this again next-day with a small Greek salad and some crusty bread. Quiet, warm comfort at its finest.

Avgolemono
makes about 4 servings

What You Need
4 tablespoons butter or olive oil
1 small yellow onion, diced finely
1 leek, white and light green parts only, washed well and sliced down the middle, then sliced into thin half-moons
1/2 cup uncooked orzo or Arborio rice (I used orzo because it's what I had on hand, and I like it better than rice--in case you don't know, orzo is actually pasta in a small elongated shape similar to rice. It made an appearance in my Italian Lemon Chicken Orzo Soup, but I think the next time I make this dish I'll try rice.)
1/3 cup white wine (Totally optional and I highly doubt it's traditionally Greek, but if you know me at all of course I had a glass of white wine in hand while I was cooking--Oyster Bay Sauvignon Blanc, if you must know--so in it goes.)
5 cups of chicken broth (or stock, whatever) plus 1 cup water
2 cups shredded precooked chicken
3 eggs
4 tablespoons lemon juice, fresh squeezed if you have it (Cut it down to 3 tablespoons if you don't like things really lemony--but if you don't like lemon why the heck are you making this anyway???)
Salt 'n peppah, to taste

What You Do
1. Okidoke let's get this show on the road! In a large stock pot over medium heat, melt the first two tablespoons butter or oil. Throw in your leek and onion and cook for about 5 minutes until things start to get all golden and translucent and shit. This is about the time I throw the wine in too and cook it down until all the wine has evaporated and been absorbed.

Now, you kinda gotta multi-task here because you have to cook the orzo at the same time, too. In a separate pot, melt the other two tablespoons of butter/oil over medium heat and throw in the orzo. WHAT?! Isn't it going to burn? No, calm your jets guys. Cooking raw orzo over medium heat in butter or oil toasts it, giving it a beautiful golden colour and nutty, toasted flavour. (Works for rice too.) This is an extra step and of course you don't have to do it, you can just toss the orzo and water in a pot and boil away--but I do it because it's easy and delicious. But yeah, once you're all nicely toasted (and the orzo is too, I suppose) pour in enough water to cover well and let boil for about 9 minutes to al dente perfection.

Some say you can just throw the raw orzo into the soup and let it cook in the broth. I don't like doing this, because pasta releases starch into the water it cooks in and I don't like that starch mucking up my silky perfect broth.

2. Shit, where were we? Oh, right. OK so the orzo is cooking away in the small pot and your onions and leeks have cooked away with the wine in the big pot. Now throw in the chicken broth and water and the shredded cooked chicken and let that simmer away gently. When the orzo is done, drain it and add to the big pot.

3. Now's the time to make the egg-lemon part. This is the only vaguely tricky part, but if you can do two things at once (whisk with one hand and pour with the other) you'll be fine. We'll be tempering the eggs--which means warming them up/cooking them gently before adding it to the hot broth so that they don't just scramble like Egg Drop Soup. That's ugly and gross. Do you want stringy threads of scrambled eggs in your soup? No, so pay attention!

In a medium mixing bowl, whisk the three eggs together until frothy. One tablespoon at a time, whisk in the lemon juice until well incorporated. It should look frothy and creamy at this stage and a light yellow colour. Now with one hand, keep whisking steadily. With the other, slowly add in one ladleful of hot broth from the big pot. Do this two to three more times. Ta-dah! You've successfully tempered eggs. Now turn OFF the stove, and slowly pour THAT mixture into the big pot, whisking away. You're done.

DO NOT let it boil once you've added the egg/lemon mixture. It'll break and you'll get Egg Drop Soup. Be gentle when you reheat this the next day, too. Microwave on half power and stir often.

Enjoy, beauties, and dream of the warm and sunny Greek isles amidst all this chilly nonsense.
Posted on January 5, 2014 .

Lagniappe: A List of Things I Made Over Christmas Break That I Did Not Photograph and Therefore Cannot Properly Blog About

I drove home to Florida to spend the holidays with friends and family, at around 35 hours of total driving time and about 2,500 miles. Thank God for hybrids, audiobooks and 5-Hour Energy!  (I drove 15 hours nonstop overnight on the first leg.)


Food

Banoffee Pie: A British classic, made with graham cracker crust, the most delicious toffee, sliced bananas, whipped cream, and chocolate. It's even BETTER than it sounds, I assure you.

Rocket Pizza Bianca: Not a true pizza bianca, of course, since my boys wanted red sauce, but we assembled this pie of wonder with baby arugula (known as rocket in Europe), buffalo mozzarella, goat cheese and prosciutto. That's the life!

Pan Seared New York Strip with a Bleu Cheese Crust: Just like Ruth's Chris Steakhouse makes it, sizzling in butter and paired with garlic mashed potatoes.

Spaghetti Bolognese: I was bold enough to feed this to an Italian. Sometimes I stun even myself with my bravery. Lucky for me, it's a solid go-to recipe that involved ground beef and Italian sausage, carrots and white wine, and an all-day simmer. I PROMISE, this recipe will make it onto the blog one day.

Baked Clams: I was forcibly relieved of my reign over the kitchen with the aforementioned Italian when he prepped his family's traditional Feast of the Seven Fishes dinner (absolutely positive I was Italian in another life, btw) for Christmas Eve. Even with just the two of us, he somehow managed to make a lobster tomato sauce (involving an entire lobster, natch) with shrimp and mussels served with linguine, a shrimp cocktail appetizer, and about two dozen baked clams. Once I was permitted back in the kitchen, we stuffed those suckers with panko bread crumbs, diced bacon, shredded cheddar cheese and scallions--and then stuffed ourselves. Not exactly seven fishes, but we were stuffed to the gills with deliciousness as it was. (See what I did there?)

It goes without saying that I played around with the lobster and made it dance like it had maracas before it was seized from me and dismembered into the pot.

Drinks

White Christmas Sangria: Made with Granny Smith apples, cranberries, and fresh rosemary--this was a sweet and festive Christmas Eve drink.

French 75's: A fantastic cocktail introduced to me by my tres chic friend Lily, it will get you super drunk on a mixture of champagne, gin, lemon juice and sugar. A Happy New Year's Eve it was, indeed.


I SUCK.

Sorry.

But I hope your holidays were grand!


Posted on January 3, 2014 .

Lekker: Thai Chicken Noodle Soup

Yikes...according to Blogger, it's been almost a month and a half since I last blogged here! Shame on me, especially since I was bound and determined to make sure that this blog, THIS ONE, did not fall by the wayside like so many others. But, there's also something to be said for writing simply for the joy of it, not because I have to. This *is* just a hobby, after all!

It's not that I haven't been writing. In fact, in December I finally published an extremely personal article that's been in the works for over a year. It was a moment of deep personal pride for me, because it is not a happy story, although it has a happy ending. It's not about food. It's about the time when I lost my love for food--when I lost my love for everything--because I was struggling my way through a dark depression and very much alone. No, it is not a happy story. However, since I am on the "other side" of depression I believe it is a subject that we need to talk about more, to offer help and support to those still struggling and to strip away the stigma of this "disease". So many of us will, at one point or another in our lives, become acquainted with the demon. You can read it here, if you are so inclined.

Moving on to happier things, I've been cooking too! Tonight's recipe was inspired by the snow currently softly falling outside my window. (Doesn't snow make just the loveliest, soft sound when it hits the ground?) After all my holiday over-indulgence, I was craving something clean and crisp, something lean, and something absolutely steaming hot. A Thai noodle soup came to mind. Give it a shot, if you've got some cold weather coming your way!

Voila! Serve topped with a soft or hard boiled egg for extra protein.

Thai Chicken Noodle Soup
(Makes a GIANT VAT--maybe 6-8 servings? Freeze half for when you're sick and don't want to cook.)

What You Need
2 tablespoons butter, vegetable oil or coconut oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 red bell pepper, sliced into thin matchsticks
1 large or 2 medium carrots, peeled and sliced into thin matchsticks (I used a large handful of baby carrots)
2 cups of shredded cooked chicken (which equated to one full breast and both legs of a small rotisserie chicken, for me, because I am lazy and also live to devour the skin of rotisserie chicken)
Approximately 4-6 cups of water, or to taste
0.5 ounce package of dried mixed mushrooms (I used the Ponderosa Mushrooms brand, available in a small box by all the other mushrooms in the supermarket) 
1 tablespoon fish sauce (found in the Asian foods aisle)
1 small handful of Thai rice noodles (also in the Asian foods aisle)
5-6 scallions/green onions, sliced into thin rings
1 large handful of cilantro leaves, chopped roughly
Juice of 1/2 a fresh squeezed lime

1 hard or soft boiled egg per person, for serving: optional, but delicious

What You Do
1. In a large stockpot, melt the butter or oil of your choice and saute the garlic over low heat until fragrant. Add the carrots and saute for 2-3 minutes, then add the bell pepper and saute for another 3ish minutes. I usually find that in Thai soups, the vegetables aren't cooked through and still contain a nice fresh bite, so you don't want them to go too soft.

2. Add the broth, the shredded chicken, the fish sauce and about 4 cups of water (you can add more later if you want more liquid, or if you find the flavour of the broth too strong for you) and bring the soup to a boil. As soon as it comes to a boil, add the noodles, mushrooms, scallions, cilantro, and lime and turn OFF the heat. Thai rice noodles are awesome! You just need to drop them into boiling water and in about 7-8 minutes, they'll soften and rehydrate and be cooked. Brilliant. Same with the dried mushrooms--they just need a few minutes in hot liquid to rehydrate. Let the soup sit covered for about 8-10 minutes, perhaps while you prepare the eggs.

To make a hard boiled egg: gently pierce the large end of the egg with an egg piercer, if you've got it. Place into a small pot filled with water. Cover and bring to a boil. As soon as it boils, start the timer for one minute. After one minute of boiling, remove the pot from the heat and let sit, covered, for 12 minutes. Then shock the eggs by telling them you're pregnant dumping them into ice water to stop the cooking process. To get a soft boiled egg, all you need to do is cut the "rest" time from 12 minutes to only 3-4.

I found myself wishing there were even more vegetables in this soup, so next time I think I'll add some finely sliced baby bok choy right at the end.


Since I've still got most of a rotisserie chicken in the fridge and more cold weather coming (we'll be enjoying a low of 7 on Monday...) I think I'll give the traditional Greek soup Avgolemono a shot this weekend. Stay warm, y'all. Bourbon helps.