I've been terrified to ride with anyone because I know my bike handling skills are terrible and I don't want to crash into everyone or make them have to wait for me at every hill (or turn or light..etc).
Luckily, I made the dudes at Surf City Cyclery promise to not make fun of me or leave me on the side of the road. They lived up to their promise and even put up with me forgetting to put my front wheel on correctly and dropping my chain on the ride (where the chain of the bike literally comes off due to bad shifting!)
The guys at this shop are seriously amazing at knowing about bikes and amazingly nice, so if you are a newbie like me and live in So Cal, go make friends with them! And buy stuff.
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| The Town of Skala |
We grew up eating this because my dad is from Skala Sikaminias, Greece - a small fishing / farming town on Lesvos. I've been to a billion different Greek restaurants and have seen this soup in many versions, but of course, I think the way my family does it is the best! My dad actually passed away in February 2010 from cancer, so...this is my father's day tribute post (even though I'm sure he'd be appalled to know that I have a blog haha...he was pretty old school about things...I could go into more detail about my dad passing and his life, but that's a separate, and more emotional post I'm not really ready to write :( ).
**Disclaimer...to make this, you'll need at least 3-4 hours and be cool with making your own broth.
I suspect this will not be the most used recipe on my blog, but believe me, it's worth the wait :).
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| I totally stole this pic off someone else's blog |
Chicken Thighs, Wings, Necks (any pieces you can boil for the broth...what you pick will depend on how much chicken you want for the soup)
1-1.5 Cups Rice
3-5 Lemons and/or Bottled Lemon Juice, to taste
2 Eggs
Salt, to taste
1) Boil Chicken pieces in a large stock pot. Fill with enough water to cover pieces. Add the strained (no seeds) juice of 1-2 lemons, or the equivalent squirt from a lemon juice bottle. Add about 50% of the salt (at least a teaspoon).
2) Boil for about 3 hours on medium heat. Add water during the cooking process if too much boils off.
3) Remove big pieces of chicken/bone from pot.
4) Pour contents of stock pot into a large bowl through a strainer to strain out smaller pieces of chicken that were left in the pot. Throw away strained pieces of chicken. Pour strained stock back into the stock pot. Chill broth until you can skim fat off the top. Add water until the pot is about 5/8 full. Heat up broth. Add small pieces chicken to broth from the large chicken pieces in step two. This will be the chicken for the soup.
5)(IMPORTANT STEP to make egg smooth in broth)
Beat two eggs in a large bowl until evenly blended. Spoon large spoonfuls of hot stock while blending the egg/stock mixture. As the blend gets more soupy, you can add larger portions of stock each time you blend. When the large bowl is nearly full, begin pouring from the bowl to the stock pot, blending the soup in the stock pot with a stirring spoon as you pour.
6) Add rice to soup - about 1 cup of rice for every 6 or so cups of broth.
7) Let the rice cook 30 minutes on medium heat on stovetop.
8) Add additional lemon and salt to taste (it should be a LOT of both) and cook for an additional 15 minutes.
Enjoy =).
PS: You can probably use already made canned chicken broth if you want. But come on...it's fun to cook like you imagine great grandma did! Live a little!
On the question side: What family recipes do you like to cook (or eat)?
Any things your family made that everyone else liked but you thought was gross?
PS: You can probably use already made canned chicken broth if you want. But come on...it's fun to cook like you imagine great grandma did! Live a little!
On the question side: What family recipes do you like to cook (or eat)?
Any things your family made that everyone else liked but you thought was gross?
