Greek Recipes

         Avgolémono is the most characteristic Greek method to thicken a soup. I remember my grandmother's ritual when making an avgolémono soup.  She used to claim that we should only stir the soup clockwise because stirring the opposite way would make the eggs curdle.          Thankfully things are not that complicated; you just have to mix the eggs very well, preferably with a mixer before adding lemon juice and gradually a cup of the hot stock (without stopping mixing as you add the stock). Once that is done, you return your avgolémono mixture back into the rest of the hot soup and you have a rich soup in both   taste and texture. If avgolémono is made properly there is absolutely no egg flavor in your soup. Soups thickened with avgolémono should be served immediately, so always make it at   the last minute, just before serving.. Apart from soups, the avgolémono method is used to give taste to other dishes such as chicken fricassee or lamb stew with greens. Beef soup avgolémono

    In classic Greek cuisine we don't use a great variety of spices, except pepper of course, cinnamon, cloves or allspice in tomato based sauces and, rarely, nutmeg in flour based sauces.       Some recipes, though, which have  an eastern origin but which have been completely incorporated in our cuisine contain different spices than we normally use. Soutzoukàk ia are meatballs flavored with cumin and cooked in a rich tomato sauce. What makes this dish different is the cumin, an exotic flavored spice used widely in the Middle East, India and Mexico; cumin is also one of the spices used in curry powder. If you eliminate cumin from this recipe you will simply have ordinary meatballs, not a bad thing but we all need something exotic every now and then.      Soutzoukàk ia are usually served with fried potatoes, steamed rice or mashed potatoes. Tzatziki is a matching side dish giving freshness to this meal. Believe it or not, soutzoukakia taste much better the day after, maybe because t