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Soup a la Grecque
Boil slowly 1/2 teacupful rice and a little mint in 1 quart stock; then stir in 1/2 pint cold stock.
Beat 3 eggs till thick, add to them the stock and rice gradually. Mix well, the n pour back and return to fire. Add 1 ounce butter and juice 1 lemon; stir well. Just before serving add 2 minced chicken livers.
This is a Greek avgolemono in all but name, and it lives or dies on the egg liaison. Everything else is a matter of translating a few old measures.
- The hinge: never let it boilOnce the eggs are in, hold the soup between 160 and 175F, stirring, until it thickens lightly. A boil curdles the eggs into threads and the soup cannot be brought back.
- TeacupfulA teacup in old receipts is not a fixed measure; it is usually reckoned somewhere between 4 and 6 fl oz, so half a teacupful of rice is roughly 1/4 to 1/3 cup uncooked. Long-grain or a short round rice both work; the round rice gives more body.
- Tempering"Add to them the stock and rice gradually" is the whole technique. Ladle the hot stock into the beaten eggs a little at a time while whisking, then return the mixture to the pan off the direct heat.
- The half pint of cold stockStirring in 1 cup of cold stock drops the temperature of the pot before the eggs go in, which very likely explains the step and is in any case useful insurance against scrambling.
- Chicken liversPoultry liver should reach 165F, and a soup held below a simmer will not reliably get raw mince there. Trim and poach or saute the livers separately until firm and no longer pink, then mince and stir them in at the end.
- Mint"A little mint" means a sprig or two of fresh mint simmered with the rice and removed, or about 1/2 teaspoon dried. Spearmint rather than peppermint is the mint usually associated with Greek cooking.
- Lemon and butterAdd both off the heat. The juice of one lemon is 2 to 3 tablespoons depending on the fruit; start with half and taste, since the acid reads much sharper in a thin egg-thickened broth than in a stew.
- YieldAbout 1 1/2 quarts finished, or four generous first-course servings. It does not reheat well and should not be held on the stove.
The name simply announces the source: this is the Greek egg-and-lemon soup, soupa avgolemono, in which beaten eggs and citrus juice are used in place of a flour roux or cream to thicken a broth. The egg-lemon liaison is common across the eastern Mediterranean and the Levant, and is often linked to Sephardic and Ottoman cooking, though the line of descent is not firmly documented. The minced chicken livers at the end suit a period in which the giblets of a roasting fowl were commonly expected to earn their keep.