Macedonian Kotosoupa Avgolemono (Κοτόσουπα Αυγολέμονο)

Macedonian kotosoupa avgolemono is the chicken soup of the northern home table, plain in its parts and strict in its finish: good chicken broth, rice, lemon, and eggs. In Thessaloniki and through Greek Macedonia, it is the bowl that appears when the weather turns hard, when a child is ill, or when one boiled bird needs to feed the family properly.

The method that decides it is the avgolemono, the egg-lemon finish. You take hot broth to the beaten eggs and lemon a ladle at a time, whisking until the mixture is warm, then it goes back into the pot off the boil. Do this and the soup thickens softly, bright and silky. Rush it and you get cooked egg strings, which is useful only if you wanted another soup.

I keep the rice modest, because this is soup, not pilaf in disguise. The chicken should give the broth body, the celery leaves should whisper of the north, and the lemon should wake the whole pot. The region is the dish's surname, but the care is the same everywhere: a clean broth, a patient finish, and enough restraint to let four good things do their work.