These past few days are wintry. Usually I am not a big fan of soups, but when outside is this cold, I like to eat soups and warm myself from inside :). Today’s food is a avgolemono soup with veggies,chicken and rice that will definitely warm you!

Avgolemono means egg-lemon. This soup is a classic Greek dish that is thickened with eggs and rice/orzo (orzo – short-cut pasta, shaped like a large grain of rice). It’s a comfort food and I just love egg and lemon duet in this dish: lemon gives little bit off tanginess and eggs adds silky texture to the dish. 

Ingredients for 4 portions:

• 2 tbsp olive oil (I used extra virgin)
• 1 onion, diced into small pieces
• 2 stalks celery, diced 
• 2 medium carrots, diced 
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/8 tsp pepper
• 1/2 cup rice (I used basmati)
• 3 cups chicken stock
• 3 cups of water
• 2 large bay leaves
• 2 chicken breasts cooked and shredded* 
• 1 lemon juice
• 2 large eggs
• 3 tbsp chopped fresh dill

For chicken 

1. Heat olive oil in a saucepan over medium heat. 
2. Add sliced onion, celery, and carrots. Sauté ~3 min (until veggies are tender). 
3. Add minced garlic and cook it for 30-60 seconds.
4. Add rice to the saucepan and stir well to coat in the oil.
5. After rice is coated with oil, add in the chicken stock and bay leaves. Bring it to a simmer. Simmer until the rice is tender (~10 minutes).
6. Add in the shredded chicken and maintain a gentle simmer.
7. In a separate bowl, whisk together the lemon juice and eggs until light (whisk ~40-60s).
8. Remove the saucepan from the heat and let it sit for a few minutes then slowly whisk in 2 cups of the hot broth into the egg mixture. Slowly pour the egg mixture into the soup, mix well.
9. Add chopped dill.

*I cooked chicken in water with tbsp of butter, onion, garlic, oregano, bay leaves, salt and pepper. I let it simmer on a low heat for a few hours (adding a little bit of water if it evaporated too much). After a few hours chicken was shredded and the liquid was strained off and used for a soup.