I am telling you. This soup fixes everything. I was introduced to this soup by my husband who is Greek. His grandmother ‘Baba’ would make big batches of this for the whole family and every time we visited. I can’t think of many occasions when we weren’t leaving her house with a full saucepan to eat later.
Now, his Mum always has a fresh pot ready for us. It was a godsend when Coco was a baby, to have some fresh soup in the fridge ready to go with a crusty bread roll certainly helped during those early weeks. Like many of these family recipes, they’re not an exact science and are often made by ‘looking at it’ and making changes where necessary. The most important step here is the Lemon and Egg mixture which, if not done correctly can wreck the soup.
Now that we’re in winter, I suggest you start whipping up a big batch of this, I promise you won’t be disappointed! I can’t actually believe I am allowed to share this recipe but here it goes…
LEMON, CHICKEN NOODLE ‘BABA’ SOUP
5-6 Chicken legs
2 knobs butter (about 50-70g)
5-6 ‘nests’ of Egg Pasta Noodles
Juice of 1 1/2 lemons
Salt & Pepper
2 eggs
Crusty bread (to serve)
Wash the chicken legs with cold water to ensure there are no feathers on there. In a large pot thoroughly cover the chicken legs with boiling water, butter, and a dessert spoon of salt. Let boil until the Chicken legs are falling off the bone when you ‘fork it’. You will need to top up the water with boiling water if it evaporates.
When chicken is cooked, take them out of the pot and strain the broth and put it into a new clean pot, or into a bowl and clean your original pot.
Then add the egg pasta noodles to the broth and boil. Whilst boiling, remove the chicken meat from the legs, shred it into small pieces with a fork and add it back into the broth.
When pasta is cooked, turn off and take off the heat for at least 15 mins. This is VERY important.
In a small bowl, beat eggs thoroughly with the juice of one lemon. Then add a cup of cold water and continue to beat well. Now get a cup of the warm broth and slowly add to the egg & lemon mixture, and continue to beat until combined well. Start to gently stir this mixture back into the main soup pot. You don’t want the eggs to cook and have the floating white bits in the soup.
Then simply add extra lemon juice and salt to taste!
It’s best to enjoy straight away with some yummy hot crusty bread but does last well in the fridge. Personally, I think it tastes better on days 2-3.
Image 1: Adding the egg noodles
Image 2: Adding shredded chicken back to broth
Image 3: Pouring lemon & egg mixture back into the soup
