After the midnight liturgy on Saturday night before Easter, most Greeks enjoy magiritsa. It is a traditional soup made with lamb organ meats, lettuce, lots of dill and spring onions! It actually calms the stomach and prepares people who’ve been abstaining from animal products for 40 days to ease into the Easter holiday – that means lots of roasted lamb…
Serves: 6-8 Preparation: 45′ Cooks in: 1h & 15′ Ready in: 2h
Ingredients
1 kg organ meats (lungs, liver, heart, intestines, etc. from 1 baby lamb, washed thoroughly, dry
500gr spring onions, washed, finely chopped
1 medium red onion, finely chopped
2 Romaine lettuces, washed, shredded
3 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1 tbsp butter
1/3 cup white rice e.g. Arborio
10-12 cups meat broth
For the lemon-egg sauce:
3 eggs
3 lemons, juiced
1 tbsp corn flour
salt, freshly ground pepper
Method
Step 1
Blanch organ meats in boiling water for 10mins. Strain and leave to cool. Cut in little pieces.
Step 2
Heat olive oil and butter in a large, wide pot and cook onions until translucent. Add the organ meats and sauté for 15 minutes, stirring continuously. Add lettuce and dill and season well with salt and pepper, cooking for 5 mins. Add broth and simmer for 40 mins. Half way add the rice and stir. Check for salt. When rice is soft remove pot from heat and prepare lemon-egg sauce.
Step 3
For the lemon-egg sauce: In a bowl whisk together eggs until very frothy. Slowly whisk in the lemon juice and corn flour. Then, add very slowly 2 ladles of hot soup broth. Add the lemon-egg mixture in the pan and tilt the pot back and forth so that the lemon-egg sauce is evenly distributed.
Step 4
Serve immediately sprinkling with a little extra dill and freshly ground pepper if you like.
Photo George Drakopoulos – Food styling Tina Webb
