A lucky dip, a website, lamb and avgolemono

"Avgolemono is just so important to Greeks. But maybe it’s even more important to Greeks who’ve left Greece." Simon Glofit

So it began with this book and lucky dip time. And since it was guru week and this was a Claudia Roden book I also decided I would combine the two and make something from the lucky dip page. The page I opened had three lamb recipes - Gigot rôti (French roast lamb); Marquit Quastal (Lamb with chestnuts) from Tunisia and Arni Fricassée from Greece. Well delicious as Gigot rôti might be we've had variations of this very many times over our lives, and I really don't like chestnuts, which is marginally curious, but there it is. So Arni fricassée it was. I may still cook this as our guru dish this week, although perhaps not. I might choose something else after a pleasant browse of the book when I have finished this piece.

Anyway, having decided that at least Arni fricassée was my choice I then began my internet trawl, which, of course, led me in a few different directions, which needed more than just a quick reference.

The first, of course, was one of those websites - the first one on the list of recipes for Arni fricassée. It's called Marilena's Kitchen (Mediterranean cooking with an accent). And its home page heading looks like this:

It's not one I have come across before and this is Marilena (Leavitt) - born in Greece, with cooking training in, Italy and in French cuisine in America where she now lives running cooking classes and doing private catering as well as writing this blog and posting photos on Instagram and Pinterest. Her expertise in Greek food comes mostly from her mother and grandmother, but also I'm sure from other professional sources. She's also into travel and so there are also posts which feature her photos of particular places and with a small piece about the place that is being photographed. She's obviously a pretty accomplished photographer and this shows in her recipe photographs too.

For example take this photograph of her most recent post a few days ago (this is a current blog) for Focaccia with caramelised onions and thyme. It's a simple recipe but she made it look so appetising that I wanted to rush off and make it straight away. The instructions are also very clear and comprehensive, and there's a short introduction to it - as there is to all of her recipes. A way of presenting recipes that I have to say I like. Just a recipe is not that appealing.

The last time I made focaccia I made Genaro Contaldi's version (a YouTube video with Jamie Oliver which is worth watching), which I have to say was really, really excellent. However I might give this one a whirl next time.

In short - Marilena is a professional. Her website is also pleasingly clear of ads, is informative and very easy to navigate.

It's not all Greek food on her site, although there are Greek dishes aplenty of course. Focaccia after all is Italian.

But, back to Arni fricassée, which is how I found her. This is her version which she calls Traditional Greek lamb fricassée with avgolemono, which title of course, explains rather more than Claudia Roden's brief title. To be honest I had done no more than glance at Claudia Roden's recipe which unfortunately does not seem to be available on the net. So, at the risk of breaking copyright laws here it is - all of her recipes should be available to the world after all:

1kg boned shoulder or neck fillet of lamb

1 large onion or a bunch of spring onions, finely chopped

3 tablespoons olive oil

Salt and pepper

200ml dry white wine

200ml chicken stock

1 large cos lettuce, cut into ribbons

3 tablespoons dill, parsley or mint, chopped

For the sauce - 2 large eggs, Juice of 1-2 lemons

Trim the lamb of fat and cut into serving portions. Put them into a large saucepan together with the onion or spring onions and oil and sauté gently for about 10 minutes. Add salt and pepper, then pour in the wine and stock. Simmer very gently, for about 1 1/2 hours or until the meat is very tender, adding a little water if it becomes too dry. Then add the lettuce and herbs and cook for a few minutes, so that they are still a little crisp.

Just before serving, make the egg and lemon sauce. Beat the eggs with the lemon juice, add a few tablespoons of liquid from the stew, beat very well, then pour this mixture into the saucepan. Stir gently over a very low heat for 1-2 minutes or until the sauce thickens, being careful not to let it curdle. Serve hot.

Marilena's recipe, whilst not being fundamentally more complicated, has more ingredients but no wine, so it's obviously one of those 'home' recipes which everyone just adjusts according to what they have on the day - particularly in relation to the greens and the onions. The Greeks, of course, are renowned for cooking with wild greens foraged from the countryside. I would have to say that dill seems to be a constant though. The avgolemono sauce is an absolute must that makes the dish.

There are countless recipes on the web so here are just a couple more for comparison - one from The Spruce Eats - Lamb fricassee with avgolomeno by Nancy Gaifyllia and the only one I saw from a well-known source, and another from apparently one of the top Greek food blogs Dmitra's Dishes - Lamb fricassée: Greek-style lamb and greens in avgolemono sauce. The Spruce Eats is a magazine kind of site and well-known and yet its photograph you would have to say is rather less tempting than Dmitra's. It's almost as bad as mine.

Before we leave Marilena's Kitchen, however, let me point you to two related recipes - Traditional Greek roasted lamb with potatoes and Classic Greek avgolemono soup, I just somehow noticed the roast lamb one, but doesn't it look gorgeous? and the mention of avgolemono in some of those other recipes, of course led me to the famous chicken soup, of which Georgina Hayden says it is:

“greatly healing and medicinal, and the most delicious, comforting, warming meal you will have”

It's a dish that I may have blogged about before, and it's certainly one that I have made at least once, so I today I will just point you to a few different versions. Felicity Cloake does her thing, describing it as "Both tantalising and restorative, zesty and creamy"; Claudia Roden's version of Egg and lemon chicken soup (Soupa avgolomeno) gets the treatment from Zoe Green of FCVS News and chef Simon Gloftis on Gourmet Traveller simply calls it Avgolemono.

At the start of all this I had expected to just be talking about one particular dish, but in the process I found a rather excellent, if specialised website. And one that was not that well-known either - for I found a site that listed the best Greek food websites - statistically assessed that is - and it wasn't there. Maybe because the site is apparently aimed at her students, rather than as a means of making her name and fortune. From there I inevitably ended up with chicken soup. A restorative and most appropriate for a pretty miserable day, although I'm fasting so cannot indulge.