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Sunday Night Soups: Avgolemono

Posted by The Gurgling Cod, November 10, 2007 at 2:00 PM

Sunday Night Soups, where each week The Gurgling Cod shows up to offer a soup appropriate to the week's Sunday Night Football game on NBC.

This week’s Sunday night contest between the Indianapolis Colts and the San Diego Chargers may well be the single most bitter matchup in NFL history. It is not a bitter rivalry, just two teams with good reason to be bitter individually.

To review: The visiting Colts lost the most hyped game of the year when they were unable, despite the help of a home crowd and kindly officials, to stave off a late comeback that saw the Patriots emerge victorious. On the other side of the line, the Chargers lost to a middling Vikings team, despite scoring on the longest play in NFL history, largely because they surrendered a record- breaking number of rushing yards to a rookie, Adrian Peterson, who ran for roughly 1.3 furlongs through a cooperative Charger defense. So expect a gametime atmosphere not unlike the end of Stalingrad, with a possible cameo by death from The Seventh Seal.

Under the circumstances, soup seems almost irrelevant, as the training table for both squads likely features steaming bowls of bile. But who wants to eat that? Instead, something with a hint of sourness but with enough reassuring substance to remind you that life is worth living. Something restorative, yet comforting. In other words, Greek Egg and Lemon Soup.

About the author: The Gurgling Cod, aka 'Fesser, writes The Gurgling Cod, a blog that is primarily concerned with food.

Gurgling Cod Avgolemono

Ingredients

1 quart chicken stock (Preferably homemade, but you do want a blonder stock here, so bear that in mind)

1/2 cup uncooked rice (It would be smart to use Carolina Gold here, for a little bit of nutty nuance, but you can get by with any long-grain white rice)

2 to 3 lemons, juiced

2 large, fresh eggs (It's worth the effort to get really fresh eggs)

Italian parsley, salt, and pepper to taste

Procedure

1. Bring stock to a boil, ad rice and simmer until rice is cooked.

2. Whisk the lemon juice and eggs together in a large bowl.

3. Ladle a ladle or two’s worth of stock into the egg-lemon mixture. Reduce heat Whisk gently, then return mixture to stock. Mix gently, and do not allow to boil over.

Variations

• If you have an abundance of fresh eggs, you could do worse than to omit the rice and gently poach an egg or two, slipping them into the broth just before serving.
• If someone you love is sick, you could grate a dried hot pepper over the soup before serving, to increase the well-known healing properties of chicken soup.

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Tags: avgolemono, Greek, soups, Sunday Night Soups