Ingredients

1 whole or half medium-sized chicken, cut in pieces

2 sticks celery, finelt chopped

2 medium carrots, finely chopped

1 medium-large onion, finely sliced

handful of fresh parsley (optional), finely chopped

juice of two lemons

4 eggs, well beaten

black & white pepper, salt.

chicken stock

Preparation

  1. Prepare all the ingredients and place in a large pot.
  2. Add water (enough to cover chicken - how runny you like the soup is up to you).
  3. Bring to a boil, then lower heat and semi-cover.
  4. Add stock cube.
  5. Leave to boil at least 40 mins on low heat, until chicken is well cooked through.
  6. In the meantime, beat eggs well and add juice of 1 lemon, plus some black pepper and salt.
  7. When the soup is ready, remove from the heat, and remove the chicken pieces. Leave to cool and remove meat from the bone. Flake into bite-sized pieces and return to pot.
  8. Take a ladel-ful of the hot soup and add slowly to egg/lemon mixture (called avgolemono) as you beat the eggs and lemon juice. Keep doing this until you have added at least 5 ladel-fulls of soup to make the avgolemono more runny.
  9. Slowly pour the avgolemono mixture back into the soup, stirring it gently in. Season to taste. I usually like to add a lot more lemon juice to my place! Except for the cheeky tartness of lemon (contrasting the creaminess of the eggs) the Vit C in lemon, which is higher than that in oranges, gives your immune system a good boost.
  10. Ladel into bowls and serve!