Magiritsa

A lamb offal soup thickened with egg and lemon, where the offal is blanched twice before it is allowed near the broth.

Lamb, Egg. Not vegetarian — contains lamb.

Ingredients

• 1 kg lamb offal: liver, heart, lungs and sweetbreads
• 2 lamb's pluck tripes, optional
• 2 litres water
• 4 spring onions, sliced
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 cos lettuces, shredded
• 1 large bunch dill, chopped
• 100 ml olive oil
• 150 g short-grain rice
• 3 eggs
• 2 lemons, juiced
• salt and pepper

Method

1. THE OFFAL IS BLANCHED TWICE AND THE WATER IS THROWN AWAY BOTH TIMES. Lamb lights and liver give up a great deal of grey scum and a strong smell in the first few minutes, and a broth built on that water is cloudy and tastes of the inside of a butcher's shop. Twice from cold, ten minutes each, rinsing between: the third water is the one that becomes the soup.
2. IT FINISHES WITH AVGOLEMONO, made exactly as on its own page -- the pan off the heat and standing, the hot broth ladled INTO the beaten egg a little at a time, and the lot returned to a pan that never simmers again. Everything that page says about curdling applies here and is not repeated.
3. Offal rinsed, membranes and ducts trimmed off.
4. Covered with cold water, brought to the boil, 10 minutes, drained, rinsed. Repeated with fresh cold water.
5. Covered a third time with the 2 litres of fresh water and simmered 1 hour until tender. Skimmed in the first 10 minutes.
6. Lifted out, cooled enough to handle, and chopped finely. The broth strained and kept -- about 1.5 litres.
7. Oil in a large pan, onion and spring onion softened 8 minutes without colouring.
8. Chopped offal in, 5 minutes.
9. The strained broth back in, brought to a simmer, rice in, 15 minutes.
10. Lettuce and most of the dill in, 5 minutes only -- any longer and the lettuce goes khaki and slimy.
11. Seasoned, then the HEAT OFF and the pan left 3 minutes to stop moving entirely.
12. The avgolemono made and stirred through as described on its own page, and the remaining dill scattered over.
13. Served at once. Like any egg-thickened soup it does not reheat.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Greece · All recipes