Volume 3, Issue 1
January 2010
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If you want to try it for yourself, here is the recipe:
INGREDIENTS
1 litre chicken stock
½ cup long grain rice
3 fresh egg yokes
Juice of 1 freshly squeezed lemon
¼ cup freshly chopped parsley
Seasoning
METHOD
Bring the stock up to temperature, add the rice, continue to simmer gently for 15 minutes and add the seasoning. In a bowl, whisk the egg yolks well, add the lemon juice and continue whisking until really creamy.
Add two ladles of warm stock to the egg & lemon mixture and continue whisking to cook the egg. Add the contents of the bowl to the hot stock, stir well and serve immediately with plenty of chopped parsley.
INGREDIENTS
1 litre chicken stock
½ cup long grain rice
3 fresh egg yokes
Juice of 1 freshly squeezed lemon
¼ cup freshly chopped parsley
Seasoning
METHOD
Bring the stock up to temperature, add the rice, continue to simmer gently for 15 minutes and add the seasoning. In a bowl, whisk the egg yolks well, add the lemon juice and continue whisking until really creamy.
Add two ladles of warm stock to the egg & lemon mixture and continue whisking to cook the egg. Add the contents of the bowl to the hot stock, stir well and serve immediately with plenty of chopped parsley.
In Greece, the stock would be made from a whole chicken boiled in water for 90 minutes or so. As an alternative, you could add an onion & a carrot to the stock towards the end of the process before it is strained for the soup. You could also add cinnamon, allspice & cloves for a more seasonal flavour.
The Taste of Roda that is well recognised by visitors to the village includes all those wonderful Corfiot and Greek dishes that have become firm favourites over the years since tourism started in earnest. These are culinary treats that are neither spicy nor bland, but rich in the flavors of the Mediterranean and packed full of local produce.
Some visitors will be aware of egg & lemon sauce, a wonderful accompaniment to meat & fish dishes but Avgolemono Soupa is a special dish & a great favourite on festive occasions – mainly Christmas. Even though some recipes suggest up to four different meats for making the basic stock, in most cases this is fundamentally a chicken broth cooked with rice and finished with creamy eggs & fresh lemon.
Some visitors will be aware of egg & lemon sauce, a wonderful accompaniment to meat & fish dishes but Avgolemono Soupa is a special dish & a great favourite on festive occasions – mainly Christmas. Even though some recipes suggest up to four different meats for making the basic stock, in most cases this is fundamentally a chicken broth cooked with rice and finished with creamy eggs & fresh lemon.
I once worked with an Irish man who brewed his own ‘Poteen’ on a housing estate in Wales. He collected potato peelings and brewed the illegal drink in a Baby Burco boiler ‘when the wind was in the right direction!’ A few years later, two Romanian friends in west London promised to show me how to make ‘Tuica’, their famous plum brandy, which every family made where they
came from on the Danube delta. We never did get around to it.
Wherever you go in the world there are illegally distilled drinks that have been produced by remote communities for generations. They are
Wherever you go in the world there are illegally distilled drinks that have been produced by remote communities for generations. They are
produced and consumed with a pride & a passion that influences most aspects of everyday life. The drinks are rarely seen outside of their local area of production. Most of us know about Turkish ‘Raki’, Italian ‘Grappa’ and the sometimes dangerous Vodkas that come from Russia and many
of these drinks have now found sufficient respectability to be produced under licence around the world.
In Greece, the production of ‘Tsipouro’ was legalised in the 1980s and it has become a firm modern favourite, the origins of which date back to the Byzantine era, maybe some 1000 years ago. Like many of its counterparts, Tsipouro is
In Greece, the production of ‘Tsipouro’ was legalised in the 1980s and it has become a firm modern favourite, the origins of which date back to the Byzantine era, maybe some 1000 years ago. Like many of its counterparts, Tsipouro is
usually distilled, drop by drop, from the residue left over from wine-making or it can be distilled from berries, apples, figs, quince and even the fruits of our old favourite, the ‘strawberry tree’.
Greece still has a lively interest in homemade drinks and tsipouro is no exception, clear liquids in water bottles being very difficult to identify – unless you drink them! I have tried two homemade Tsipouros, one from a sherry bottle which was very smooth and the other from under the counter, one sip of which left me croaking for the rest of the day! My advice is stick to the shop versions – they are very good. Enthusiastic taverna owners will often give you a free shot at the end of a meal and hunters will start the day with a good slug to keep out the cold. Make sure that you sample all the local traditions and don’t leave Corfu without trying tsipouro.
Greece still has a lively interest in homemade drinks and tsipouro is no exception, clear liquids in water bottles being very difficult to identify – unless you drink them! I have tried two homemade Tsipouros, one from a sherry bottle which was very smooth and the other from under the counter, one sip of which left me croaking for the rest of the day! My advice is stick to the shop versions – they are very good. Enthusiastic taverna owners will often give you a free shot at the end of a meal and hunters will start the day with a good slug to keep out the cold. Make sure that you sample all the local traditions and don’t leave Corfu without trying tsipouro.
