Avgolemono

Ingredients

Quantity

Ingredient

Whole chicken

At least 250ml

Short grain white rice

2 cubes

Chicken bouillon

A fair amount of

Celery leaves

Eggs

Lemons

5 ml

Salt

5 ml

Fresh ground black pepper

250 ml of rice is absolutely the least amount of rice you should put in. I like rice in this soup, so I usually add more than this.
Chopping the celery stems and putting them in the soup can be quite tasty as well, and is definitively something you should try at some point.
If you want a less lemony avgolemono (why would you ever want that?) then skip adding the zest.

Place the chicken in a large pot and cover with water.
Bring the chicken to a boil, when the water is at a rolling boil turn the heat down to medium and let boil for about 45 minutes or more.
Continuously skim off any impurities and cruft that rises to the top.
When the meat pulls from the chicken easily, fish it up from the pot and transfer it to a large bowl and let it cool. Be careful when lifting it up from the water since the water is very hot and will also be inside the chicken.
Add the rice, about 500ml of hot water, the chicken bouillon cubes and celery leaves. Turn off the heat and cover with a lid.
Remove the bones and skin from the chicken. Shred the chicken meat and add to the pot.
Zest and juice the lemons into a bowl. Add the eggs to this bowl and whisk everything.
Take a ladle of the soup from the pot and slowly mix it in the lemon and egg bowl, tempering the eggs so they don’t curdle. Be careful and go very slow here, do not add too much soup at once. Just a little bit, then a little bit more etc.
Pour the egg and lemon mixture back into the pot and whisk.
Turn heat on medium and continue to cook until the rice is done.
When the rice is done, pull the pot off from the heat and put a lid on it and let it rest for about 10 minutes.
Season to taste with salt and pepper.