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As mentioned in our last blog post, The Greekish Life ran our first recipe contest! We may make this an annual thing; let's see how it goes. 

 

And the winner is: Karen TaylorHowell, owner of www.CapeCodEateries.com, for her recipe for Youvarlakia! 

 

I like how it's truly a Greekish recipe, in that you can add the meatballs to even a canned soup in a pinch and still add that Greek flavor. It also comes in at around 30-40 minutes to prepare, which is another thing we really like around here!

 

Here's Karen in her own words:

 

This is what I do to make soup a bit more interesting. It’s not completely my recipe. I simply add meatballs to whatever soup I have on hand. [Number of] servings depends on the amount of soup you’re making.

 

Mediterranean Meatball Soup (Youvarelakia) a.k.a. Youbettalikem

Turn any chicken soup into this Mediterranean marvel by adding these simple-to-make Greek meatballs.

 

Ingredients for Meatballs

 

2 ¼ cups of ground beef

¼ of a cup long-grain rice (not boiled)

½ cup parsley, finely chopped

1 medium sized onion, finely chopped

1 egg

2 tbsps olive oil

½ carrot, grated (optional)

3 tbsps fresh dill, finely chopped (optional)

1 tsp salt

a pinch of coriander

freshly ground pepper

 

Ingredients for avgolemono

 

2 eggs

Juice of two lemons

Whisk these two ingredients together until frothy

 

Directions

 

Combine the ingredients by hand. Place mixture in fridge for about 15 minutes as this will help the meatballs from breaking apart when cooking in the soup.

 

It helps if you have a small ice cream scoop so all the meatballs are of uniform size. Form them into golf ball size meatballs.

 

Gently drop them into any chicken soup – Greek soup from scratch, Liptons, Campbells – I’ve even used ramen noodle soup in a pinch.

 

Keep on low boil for 15 minutes. Slowly add egg/lemon (avgolemono) to the soup, stirring all the while. Cook for another 3-5 minutes and serve.