Today, I am going to share with you a favorite soup from my childhood: Greek Meatball Soup in Avgolemono (Youvarlakia).
Making the meatballs for this soup is really easy as they require only a few ingredients to come together: Ground beef, rice, grated onion and a few fresh spices (never dried — ew!). As the rice cooks, the meatballs puff up and almost double in volume. Once they are cooked, then the traditional egg and lemon base, called avgolemono is carefully stirred into the cooking liquid and within minutes, the whole dish is transformed into a frothy, delicious and very satisfying soup. Here is my mom’s epic Youvarlakia recipe:
Ingredients:
1 onion
1 package of ground beef
2 eggs
A handful of fresh mint leaves
A handful of parsley
1/2 cup rice
Salt & pepper to taste
A handful of romaine lettuce
1 lemon
Preparation:
Chop the onion in a food processor. Chop the mint leaves and parsely. In a bowl, add chopped onions, mint leaves, parsley, rice, egg, salt & pepper, to the ground beef. Mix well. Shape mixture into small meatballs.
In a large pot, fill with water 1/4 full. Add 1/4 cup of rice. Once the water boils, add the raw meatballs and chopped lettuce. Let meatballs cook until you see the rice is cooked. Now it’s time to make the piece de resistance — the avgolemono.
Photo: By realgreekrecipes.com
