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Any day is a good day for soup in my world. It may be 40C outside and yet if there's a pot of soup on the go, that would always be my food of choice...but on days like today, with torrential rain periods and trees swaying from gale force winds, it was an absolute no brainer to make a big pot of the good stuff!

This beef avgolemono soup today brought me joy on two fronts. The first is that avgolemono is a food of my childhood. Yes, admittedly it was normally made with chicken and only occasionally with beef or lamb, but to this day any time I make it I'm taken back to days of skating around the back streets of Summer Hill in the inner west of Sydney and being clipped on the ear when I wouldn't behave at the dinner table! 

The second reason this evening's meal brought me joy is that it was a complete paddock to plate meal. The bones were from one of our cows (as I can't stand anything going to waste when an animal is processed for our table), the eggs from our chooks, the lemons from our orchard and the potatoes and carrots from the patch. 

The end result was a super tasty, nutritious meal that brought on all the cosy feels on such a weather-insane day. It's not a difficult soup to make however it does take time. If you planned it ahead, it would be best to roast the bones and make the stock before making the soup. I normally cook up a big batch of stock when I'm planning on staying home for the day and then freeze it in mason jars to defrost when time is of the essence and a meal has to be prepped quick smart. It is such a simple hack but definitely one worth doing.

I hope you give this comfort food a try. If you'd like a little visual guidance, you can find a step by step guide on the highlights section of the @mummascountrykitchen Instagram page. Please don't forget to tag me on your socials if you make it, I'd love to see your version!

Thanks for taking the time to read the post, take care, stay safe!

H xx

Serves: 8-10
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 6-7 hours

Ingredients:

  • Couple of kilos of beef bones
  • Salt and pepper
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 2 carrots, roughly chopped
  • 2 stalks celery, with leaves, roughly chopped
  • 1 brown onion, unpeeled, quartered
  • 1 bulb garlic, halved horizontally
  • 1 large potato, roughly chopped
  • 4 whole cloves
  • 2 cups risoni pasta
  • 2 eggs
  • Juice of one juicy lemon or two lemons
  • Freshly cracked black pepper, to serve

Instructions:

  1. Preheat the oven to 190C.
  2. Place the bones in a shallow baking tray, season with salt and pepper and drizzle over half the olive oil. Pop the tray in the oven to roast for about 45 minutes or until the bones are golden brown.
  3. Drain the excess fat from the tray and place the bones and crusty brown bits into a large stock pot. Add enough water to cover the bones by an inch or two and add the carrots, celery, onion, garlic, potato, cloves and the other half of the oil. Season with salt and pepper and bring to a boil and then reduce the heat to as low as possible and simmer for at least 4-5 hours.
  4. Place a colander over another large pot and strain the contents of the large stock pot so you have all the stock into the new pot. Bring the stock to a boil again and add the risoni pasta. Stir and cook for about 10 minutes or until pasta is all dente. In the meantime, pick any meat off the bones and add to the new post along with chunks of carrots and potato.
  5. Once the pasta is cooked, make the avgolemono by separating the eggs. Place the whites in a medium size bowl and the yolks in a small vessel. Set aside.
  6. Add three ladles of the hot stock to the lemon juice and set aside.
  7. To make the avgolemono, beat the egg whites until they are lovely and frothy. Add the yolks, beating continuously, then slowly drizzle in the lemon/ stock liquid, making sure you continue to beat the mixture. Once it has all combined and is frothy it is ready.
  8. Add the avgolemono to the soup, stirring continuously to make sure the egg doesn't curdle. Slowly bring the soup back to a boil to ensure the egg cooks through, stirring very often, before turning off the heat. Adjust the seasoning if necessary by adding salt, pepper or lemon juice if needed.
  9. Allow the soup to sit for about 10 minutes before serving with a sprinkle of freshly ground black pepper.