Yiouvarlakia
KO’s Yiouvarlakia is a wholesome, hearty soup of herb-loaded meatballs and rice. The soup can be enjoyed as is, or with an avgolemono (egg-lemon) wash, for an added frothy-zing!
Ingredients
For the meatballs you will need…
500 g beef mince
1 brown onion grated
1 egg
½ cup medium grain rice
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon cracked black pepper
20 g mint leaves finely chopped
60 g parsley leaves finely chopped
60 g dill fronds finely chopped
For the soup you will need…
4 litres water
1 tablespoon salt
½ cup extra virgin olive oil EVOO
Meatball mixture
Preparation
Preparing the meatballs…
- Combine all of the meatball ingredients in a bowl and mix well
Preparing the soup…
- Place the water, salt and EVOO in a large pot and heat on high
- Form the meatball mixture into balls, about 5cm in diameter, and gently drop the meatballs into the boiling soup
- Return the soup to a rolling boil, before reducing to a gentle boil for 20 - 30 minutes
- Skim the foam from the top of the soup if you wish
- Add 1 ½ cups medium grain rice to the pot and stir through well
- Continue to boil gently until the rice is almost cooked through (just before it reaches al dente – see Key Points)
- Remove the pot from the heat and allow it to sit for 10 minutes before serving
Serving the yiouvarlakia…
- You can enjoy the soup as is, or you can add an avgolemono (egg-lemowash to it, for some extra frothy-zing
For the avgolemono wash…
- Separate 3 eggs, juice 3 lemons and reserve 150ml of stock from the pot
- Allow the stock to cool a little, so that it’s warm rather than hot
- Beat the egg whites till they form soft peaks
- Gently fold in the egg yolks, the lemon juice and the warm stock, in turn, to create the avgolemono wash
- Slowly add the avgolemono wash to the yiouvarlakia pot and mix through
- Serve and enjoy!
