Avgolémono Ploumistí

Pour 1/4 cup olive oil into large stock pot, toss in your onions, cover with minimal broth, and cook on high until translucent. Add the carrots, celery, potatoes, chicken, and one carton chicken broth. Change heat to medium and cook until chicken is white. Stir often, and add more broth as needed. Add orzo and more broth as needed until pasta is cooked. Remove from heat and allow soup to cool to room temp. Add more broth if too thick. (I usually keep a carton of broth in the fridge to cool the soup faster at this step.). Smell your soup, add black pepper as desired. Taste your soup, add sea salt if needed. When your soup has cooled, ladle about 4 oz into a tumbler. Add the lemon juice and egg whites, whisking aggressively until the emulsion looks uniform. Restart the heat under your soup to high. SLOWLY add your egg white emulsion to your soup over 10-15 seconds, stirring incessantly for at least 2 minutes. Reduce heat to medium, and stir frequently; do not leave unstirred for more than 30 seconds. When soup comes to a boil, again turn off the heat. Your soup has not finished thickening; it will thicken further as it cools. Keep stirring for 2 minutes after you turn the heat off just to make sure the emulsion is set. Ladle into rimmed bowl, dust with pepper, and feel better! ----------------- TIPS: Made too much soup? Freeze it in saucepan sized tuperware for a quick thaw over the stove when you're too sick to move. Already too sick to move? Use a milk frother or smoothie shaker instead of a whisk, canned/cubed chicken to spare you the chopping, and dehydrated veggies because you're too tired to chop. Want perfect thickness? Adding the eggwites in the end will thicken your soup considerably. Have cold chicken broth on hand to dilute and cool your soup if it is not runny enough prior to the eggs so you do not over-thicken. Do NOT dilute your soup with water and salt; it will lose its flavor. Also do NOT add the eggs until the soup is cool enough to not instantly cook the egg whites upon contact.