Avgolemono (Greek chicken-and-rice soup with lemony goodness)

Posted by NathanRasmussen with modifications from his mother's recipe; adapted by her from some other source to resemble a soup eaten at a Greek restaurant in Vancouver, British Colombia. This is quite an adaptable dish in terms of the settings it can be used in, and is quite likeable too. It resembles the comfort-food offspring of a chicken soup and a risotto, and isn't hard to make.

• A good-sized chicken breast or two (or equivalent volume of other chicken). Cut to bite size and either bake or pan-fry it while the other stuff is cooking. Either way, get it tasty and brown.

• 8 cups chicken broth. Bring to boil, then add
• 1 cup rice, cover, restore to an easy boil, and cook for 20 minutes.

This needs to be rice with some 'stickiness' to it when it cooks; i.e., no long grain rices and none of that weird converted stuff. The starch that the rice sheds is important to the coherence and texture of the finished soup. But if your simmer is too low, the starch will glue it to the pot, and you'll need to take time out to stir it from preparing ...

• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan or Romano cheese (the more flavorful, the better, even if the Romano is kind of offputting in other uses). Buy a chunk (such a hard cheese will keep forever, wrapped in plastic in the fridge) and eschew at all costs the infamous I Can't Believe It's Not Cleanser!
• 1 t (or more) freshly-grated lemon zest (one-half to one lemon's worth, more or less)
• 1 t (or more, like up to a tablespoon) freshly-squeezed lemon juice (handy having that zested lemon sitting around, isn't it?)
• 3 beaten medium egg yolks (see EggSeparationTechnique and ThingsToDoWithEggWhites). This measure is slightly generous; I made half-again this recipe with only 4 medium yolks. But I nearly doubled the cheese, which thickens it back up.

... all of which should be mixed together. By now your rice should be tender and your chicken cooked (internal temperature 165-170 F / 74-78 C, if you, like me, have had enough foodborne illness for one lifetime). 'Temper' the egg mixture by stirring half a cup of broth into it (slowly! you want to separate the egg particles before they cook); then pour the egg mixture into the soup pot while stirring; lastly, mix in the chicken pieces. Depending on the thickness of the soup, this could be 'stir in' or 'fold in'.

To serve, you ought to have some toppings.

• Start with a good fingerful more of grated cheese.
• Next, you need to kick up the lemon. By my taste, each serving needs the juice of a generous wedge, plus a thin round slice (edible in its entirety!) for a pretty garnish. One approach would be to take the thin slices off one end of a lemon, then stand the remainder on end and cut wedges. The soup has enough 'weight' to offset or even to demand a fairly blatant lemony punch, so don't be shy.
• Highly recommended: A dusting of black pepper and a sprinkling of crushed coriander seed. Coriander is a bridge between citrusy and peppery aromas, and it is just wonderful besides. Do not buy it in expensive little jars; go to the Mexican section of the supermarket and get the big, cheap plastic envelope of it. Trust me on this one, you won't regret it. Use a bunch; 20 seeds per serving is not excessive. Crush them slightly (on a wet surface they don't skip away so much). De-lish.