Avgolemono ( or literally egg–lemon) is a family of

sauce In cooking, a sauce is a liquid, cream, or semi- solid food, served on or used in preparing other foods. Most sauces are not normally consumed by themselves; they add flavour, texture, and visual appeal to a dish. ''Sauce'' is a French wor ...

s and

soup Soup is a primarily liquid food, generally served warm or hot – though it is sometimes served chilled – made by cooking or otherwise combining meat or vegetables with Stock (food), stock, milk, or water. According to ''The Oxford Compan ...

s made with

egg An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the ...

yolk Among animals which produce eggs, the yolk (; also known as the vitellus) is the nutrient-bearing portion of the egg whose primary function is to supply food for the development of the embryo. Some types of egg contain no yolk, for example bec ...

and

lemon The lemon (''Citrus'' × ''limon'') is a species of small evergreen tree in the ''Citrus'' genus of the flowering plant family Rutaceae. A true lemon is a hybrid of the citron and the bitter orange. Its origins are uncertain, but some ...

juice mixed with

broth Broth, also known as bouillon (), is a savory liquid made of water in which meat, fish, or vegetables have been simmered for a short period of time. It can be eaten alone, but it is most commonly used to prepare other dishes, such as soups ...

, heated until they thicken. Avgolemono can be used to thicken soups and stews.

Yuvarlakia Yuvarlakia or giouvarlakia ( Λεξικό της κοινής Νεοελληνικής (''Dictionary of Common Modern Greek''), Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών, Θεσσαλονίκη, 1998. ''s.v.''/ref>) is a Greek d ...

is a Greek meatball soup made with rice and meat meatballs that are cooked in liquid. Avgolemono is added to the soup to thicken it. Magiritsa soup is a Greek avgolemono soup of lamb offal served to break the fast of

Great Lent Great Lent, or the Great Fast (Greek language, Greek: Μεγάλη Τεσσαρακοστή, ''Megali Tessarakosti'' or Μεγάλη Νηστεία, ''Megali Nisteia'', meaning "Great 40 Days", and "Great Fast", respectively), is the most impor ...

. As a soup, avgolemono usually starts with

chicken The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domesticated subspecies of the red junglefowl (''Gallus gallus''), originally native to Southeast Asia. It was first domesticated around 8,000 years ago and is now one of the most common and w ...

broth, though meat (usually lamb), fish, or vegetable broths are also used. Typically,

rice Rice is a cereal grain and in its Domestication, domesticated form is the staple food of over half of the world's population, particularly in Asia and Africa. Rice is the seed of the grass species ''Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice)—or, much l ...

, orzo, pastina, or

tapioca Tapioca (; ) is a starch extracted from the tubers of the cassava plant (''Manihot esculenta,'' also known as manioc), a species native to the North Region, Brazil, North and Northeast Region, Brazil, Northeast regions of Brazil, but which has ...

are cooked in the broth before the mixture of eggs and lemon is added. Its consistency varies from near-

stew A stew is a combination of solid food ingredients that have been Cooking, cooked in Soup, liquid and served in the resultant gravy. Ingredients can include any combination of vegetables and may include meat, especially tougher meats suitable for ...

to near-

. It is often served with pieces of the meat and vegetables reserved from the broth. The soup is usually made with whole eggs, but sometimes with just yolks. The whites may be beaten into a foam separately before mixing with the yolks and lemon juice, or whole eggs may be beaten with the lemon juice. The starch of the pasta or rice contributes to stabilizing the emulsion.

Similar foods

Similar foods are found in

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

Arab Arabs (, , ; , , ) are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in West Asia and North Africa. A significant Arab diaspora is present in various parts of the world. Arabs have been in the Fertile Crescent for thousands of years ...

Sephardic Jewish Sephardic Jews, also known as Sephardi Jews or Sephardim, and rarely as Iberian Peninsular Jews, are a Jewish diaspora population associated with the historic Jewish communities of the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) and their descendant ...

, Turkish,

Balkan The Balkans ( , ), corresponding partially with the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throug ...

and Jewish-Italian cuisine. In Sephardic Jewish cuisine, it is called ''agristada'' ( :he:אגריסטדה) or ''salsa blanco'', and in Jewish-Italian, ''bagna brusca'', ''brodettato'', or ''brodo brusco''.Gil Marks, ''The Encyclopedia of Jewish Food'', 2010, , p. 5 In

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

, it is called ''tarbiya'' or ''beida bi-lemoune'' 'egg with lemon'; and in Turkish ''terbiye''. It is also widely used in

Balkan cuisine Balkan cuisine encompasses a collection of national cuisines that combine characteristics of European cuisine with some of those from West Asia. It is found in the Balkans, a region without clear boundaries but which in its broadest sense includes ...

. Although often considered a

dish, ''avgolemono'' is originally

: ''agristada'' has been described by

Claudia Roden Claudia Roden (née Douek; born 1936) is an Egyptian-born British cookbook writer and cultural anthropologist of Sephardi/ Mizrahi descent. She is best known as the author of Middle Eastern cookbooks including ''A Book of Middle Eastern Food'' ...

as the "cornerstone of Sephardic cooking." ''Agristada'' was made by Jews in Iberia before the

expulsion from Spain Expulsion from Spain may refer to: * Expulsion of Jews from Spain (1492 in Aragon and Castile, 1497–98 in Navarre) * Expulsion of the Moriscos (1609–1614) See also * Forced conversions of Muslims in Spain (1500–1502 in Castile, 1515–16 ...

with verjuice,

pomegranate The pomegranate (''Punica granatum'') is a fruit-bearing deciduous shrub in the family Lythraceae, subfamily Punica, Punicoideae, that grows between tall. Rich in symbolic and mythological associations in many cultures, it is thought to have o ...

juice, or

bitter orange The bitter orange, sour orange, Seville orange, bigarade orange, or marmalade orange is the hybrid citrus tree species ''Citrus'' × ''aurantium'', and its fruit. It is native to Southeast Asia and has been spread by humans to many parts of th ...

juice, but not

vinegar Vinegar () is an aqueous solution of diluted acetic acid and trace compounds that may include flavorings. Vinegar typically contains from 5% to 18% acetic acid by volume. Usually, the acetic acid is produced by a double fermentation, converting ...

. In later periods, lemon became the standard acidic ingredient. For some Sephardic Jews, this soup (also called ''sopa de huevo y limón'') is a traditional way to break the

Yom Kippur Yom Kippur ( ; , ) is the holiest day of the year in Judaism. It occurs annually on the 10th of Tishrei, corresponding to a date in late September or early October. For traditional Jewish people, it is primarily centered on atonement and ...

fast. As a sauce, it is used for warm dolma, for vegetables like artichokes, and roast meats. According to Joyce Goldstein, the dish ''terbiyeli köfte'' is made by frying meatballs until they are cooked through, then preparing a pan sauce by deglazing the pan and using the cooking juices to temper the avgolemono, which is served over the meatballs. In some Middle Eastern cuisines, it is used as a sauce for chicken or fish. Among Italian Jews, it is served as a sauce for

pasta Pasta (, ; ) is a type of food typically made from an Leavening agent, unleavened dough of wheat flour mixed with water or Eggs as food, eggs, and formed into sheets or other shapes, then cooked by boiling or baking. Pasta was originally on ...

or meat.Joyce Esersky Goldstein, ''Cucina Ebraica: Flavors of the Italian Jewish Kitchen'', 1998, , p. 166

References

Bibliography

* Alan Davidson, ''The Oxford Companion to Food'', Oxford, 1999. . {{Soups Middle Eastern cuisine Balkan cuisine Cypriot cuisine Mizrahi Jewish cuisine Sephardi Jewish cuisine Soups Lemon dishes Greek sauces Greek soups Egg-based sauces Turkish cuisine Yom Kippur Citrus dishes