Avgolemono
Egg-lemon sauce and soup used across Mediterranean cuisines.
Avgolemono (Greek: αυγολέμονο or αβγολέμονο, literally 'egg-lemon') is a family of sauces and soups made with egg yolk and lemon juice mixed with broth, heated until they thicken. It is used to thicken soups and stews, such as the Greek meatball soup Yuvarlakia and the Lent-breaking soup Magiritsa. As a soup, it typically starts with chicken broth, though meat, fish, or vegetable broths are also used, with rice, orzo, pastina, or tapioca cooked in the broth before the egg-lemon mixture is added.
- type
- Sauce and soup family
- origin
- Sephardic Jewish (originally from Iberia)
- key_ingredients
- Egg yolk, lemon juice, broth
- associated_cuisines
- Greek, Cypriot, Arab, Sephardic Jewish, Turkish, Balkan, Jewish-Italian
- also_known_as
- Agristada, salsa blanco, tarbiya, terbiye, bagna brusca
Lore & Background
Avgolemono is a versatile preparation that appears as both a soup and a sauce. As a soup, it often includes chicken broth and starches like rice or orzo, which help stabilize the emulsion. The soup is usually made with whole eggs, but sometimes just yolks; egg whites may be beaten separately into a foam before mixing. Its consistency ranges from near-stew to near-broth, and it is often served with pieces of meat and vegetables reserved from the broth.
Reader's Guide
Although often considered a Greek dish, avgolemono is originally Sephardic Jewish: agristada has been described by Claudia Roden as the 'cornerstone of Sephardic cooking.' Agristada was made by Jews in Iberia before the expulsion from Spain with verjuice, pomegranate juice, or bitter orange juice, but not vinegar; later, 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 fast. As a sauce, it is used for warm dolma, vegetables like artichokes, and roast meats. In some Middle Eastern cuisines, it is used as a sauce for chicken or fish, and among Italian Jews, it is served as a sauce for pasta or meat. The dish terbiyeli köfte involves frying meatballs, then preparing a pan sauce with cooking juices to temper the avgolemono, served over the meatballs.
Did You Know?
- Avgolemono literally means 'egg-lemon' in Greek.
- The starch from cooking rice or pasta helps stabilize the emulsion.
- In Sephardic Jewish cuisine, it is called agristada and was originally made with verjuice or pomegranate juice, not lemon.
- Magiritsa is a Greek avgolemono soup of lamb offal served to break the fast of Great Lent.
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