HOME COOKING - YOUVARLAKIA!

“Where we love is home, home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.” - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr

Back home today after flying in with the red eye special this morning and going straight to work! All sorts of crises to handle, which magically seem to appear when I am away. After putting in about 10 hours of work, I came back home and it was very nice to find a home-cooked meal on the table and smell the delicious scents of the garden, the kitchen, the rich aromas of home.

We had a traditional Greek dish today, which is called Youvarlakia (meatballs in egg and lemon soup).

Youvarlakia

Ingredients
1 tbsp. butter
1 large onion
5 cups clear beef broth (or vegetable broth)
500 g lean ground beef
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. celery salt
1/2 cup uncooked short-grain rice
1 tbsp. chopped parsley
1 tsp chopped dill
ground pepper, to taste
4 eggs
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice

Method
Peel and finely grate the onion into a bowl. Add the beef, salt, parsley, dill, ground pepper, and the uncooked rice. Form the mixture into 3.5 cm meatballs. And roll so that they become even and smooth.

Add butter to a large pot to melt. Add the pepper and celery salt and stir through. Add the broth and bring to a boil. Drop the meatballs into the broth carefully so that they don’t break up. Reduce the heat and simmer, half covered, for about 20-25 minutes, until meatballs cook through and the rice is done (add more broth if needed). Season to taste with more salt and pepper if desired. Remove from heat. In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs with the lemon juice well, until combined. While whisking, slowly drizzle the broth from the meatballs into the egg and lemon mixture, stirring continuously so as not to curdle the eggs (this is best done by two people, one whisking one adding the hot broth, or you may use a mixer on low speed). Slowly pour the egg/lemon/broth mixture back into the meatballs, again stirring continuously as you do so. Season to taste again, if necessary.

Serve meatballs with a generous amount of soup and garnish with chopped parsley.