A hearty and delicious traditional Greek recipe perfect for a cold winter’s day! Youvarlakia or giouvarlakia is a famous Greek meatball soup, which is full of Mediterranean flavours, juicy meatballs and finished off with a delicious egg lemon sauce.
Its secret ingredient for this extra creamy Greek recipe for youvarlakia soup is the Avgolemono – an egg lemon sauce that is often added in Greek recipes and acts as a thickening agent, giving this soup a unique texture and flavour.
Method
- To prepare this Greek meatball soup recipe, start by making the meatballs (youvarlakia). Place all the meatball ingredients into a large bowl, knead the mixture squeezing the ingredients with your hand until smooth. Leave the mixture to rest in the fridge for 15 minutes. (This will prevent the youvarlakia from breaking up when boiled.) Form the meatballs (youvarlakia) and set them aside.
- Pour into a large pan 2 ½ cups of water and bring to the boil. Turn the heat down and gently add the meatballs (youvarlakia) in the water, put the lid back on and cook for 20-25 minutes. (The water should be enough to cover the meatballs, so add some more warm water if needed). You can cook your rice separately or add it to this and boil until cooked.
__
Egg Lemon Sauce
To prepare the egg lemon sauce for the Greek meatball soup, crack the eggs into a bowl and whisk. In a previous recipe you will see that I didn’t include the white of the egg only the yellow part of the egg. Try it this time adding all of the egg!! Add the lemon juice and the flour and whisk well. Add into the bowl a ladle of hot soup and whisk quickly. Add one more ladle and whisk again until combined.
Stir in the egg lemon sauce into the youvarlakia soup and cook for 2-3 minutes over medium heat, until warm but not boiling.
Serve this extra warming Greek meatball soup, while still hot with a sprinkle of chopped parsley.
Make sure that you do not cover any left overs until they have cooled; the sauce may curdle otherwise!!
Ingredients:
- 500g lean minced beef
- 1/2 of a cup long-grain rice
- ½ cup parsley, finely chopped
- 1 medium sized onion, finely chopped
- 1 egg
- 2 tbsps of our Olevum extra virgin olive oil
- 3 tbsps fresh dill, finely chopped (
- 1 tsp salt
- A pinch of coriander and oregano
- Freshly ground pepper
For the Egg Lemon Sauce
- 2 Eggs
- Juice of two lemons
- (1 tablespoon of flour)