Giouvarlakia (Greek meatball and vegetable soup)

Instructions

Giouvarlakia or Yiouvarlakia

• Assemble all the ingredients for this recipe along with the  kitchen equipment.
• Start by chopping the onions finely and cutting the carrots in small pieces.  Chop the celery and dill too.
• In a large bowl, mix mince with the half of the chopped onion, 1/2 tsb salt ,1/2 tsb white pepper,1/2 tsb cumin, 3tbspoon rice.Knead the mince with the spices  for approximately 2-3 mins until the spices and the rice are incorporated.
• With the help of a teaspoon, take portions of the mince mixture and shape them into equally sized round balls.
• Add flour in a separarte square bowl.
• Add a few of these teaspoon sized meatballs in the square bowl and cover them with flour. The number of the meatballs you add in the bowl each time will depend on the size of your bowl. Remember that your goal is to cover the meatballs with flour so only need a couple of meatballs at a time would be advisable. Shake the bowl a few times so that the meatballs are covered with flour.
• Repeat this step until you have floured all the meatballs adequately.
• Add 700 mls of water in a large pot. Make sure your water is of room temperature as this will allow the meatballs to both retain their shape but also thicken your soup.  If you add hot water, the meatballs will not be able to retain their shape . In addition, the flour that is covering the meatballs will become dough in hot water.
• Continue this until you have added all your meatballs in the pan.
• Season to taste.
• Now, bring the meatball soup to boil.
• Once you have done this, there will be a froth on the top of your boiled soup. Remove this froth.
• Let the meatballs boil for approximately 10mins on medium to high heat. Advice: Do not cover the lid on the pan at this stage.
• Pour  the stock (optional)  and  add olive oil, rice, carrots, celery, cumin and the other half of the onion.
• Taste the soup and season if needed.
• Let the soup boil for 30-35mins on medium heat. Put the lid on the pot.
• At this stage you may need to add more water (thus I set aside some from the onset of the cooking).
• Add the chopped dill and the butter . The butter needs to be cold and not of room temperature. The cold butter will thicken your meatball soup.
• Let the soup cool and serve.
• Enjoy.

Egg-lemon sauce (Avgolemono or Augolemono sauce)

• This is definitely the trickiest part of the meatball soup.  If this Avgolemono sauce is not executed properly , the end result will be a scramble egg soup.
• In a large bowl beat 2 whole eggs  for approximately 2-3mins.
• Then add the fresh juice of 2 lemons and continue to beat the eggs for a couple of minutes.
• With the help of a ladle, take each time a ladle worth of juice/ liquid  from your meatball soup and add it into this Avgolemono sauce. Make sure you add the meatball  soup liquids slowly in the avgolemono sauce bowl and simultaneously whisk. If you do not stir, you will end up with scrambled eggs.
• Add approximately 4 ladle's worth of liquid into the avgolemono sauce bowl.
• Let the avgolemono sauce rest for 2-3mins.

Meatball soup (cont)

• • • Once you have prepared the  Augolemono sauce, then start slowly adding it back in the pot. It is vital not to rush this step too.
    • Make sure you add the Avgolemono sauce slowly whilst continuously stirring the meatball soup. Tip: Add the Avgolemono sauce with one hand whilst stirring steadily and continuously with the other hand.

Kali Orexi!

Enjoy