Tortellini soup with dill and spinach, avgolemono style

 

This soup looked so appealing I had to try it. Plus lemon and dill, right? It gets its creaminess from the Greek-style tempered egg mixture.

Lemony tortellini soup with spinach and dill

From Bon Appetit

Ingredients
1 bunch spinach, about 10 ounces
1 bunch dill
8 cups good broth
10 ounce package of tortellini
4 eggs
Juice of 1 medium lemon (4 tablespoons)
Black pepper
Grated Parmesan for garnish

Method
Remove sturdy stems from spinach and chop leaves. Chop dill leaves coarsely. Set aside.

Bring broth to a boil. Add tortellini and cook about 3 minutes or according to package directions. Remove tortellini from broth and divide among 4 soup bowls.

Beat eggs in a medium bowl. Add lemon juice and several generous grinds of pepper and some kosher salt. Slowly whisk in ladles of hot broth one at a time until egg mixture is quite warm.Add to broth in pot and cook about 5 to 7 minutes until thickened, whisking often. Do not let mixture boil. Adjust seasoning as needed.

Remove from heat and stir in spinach and dill. Spoon over tortellini in bowls and serve garnished with grated Parmesan. Serves 4.

Rating: Short version: Skip it.

Longer version: I did not love this. Hard to believe I'm saying this, but it might be too lemony. It overwhelmed the dill flavor. Maybe if the lemon was dialed back a bit and some crushed red pepper flakes added to give it a bit more balance? My expectations were lower when we reheated the leftovers, especially since I wasn't sure how well the pasta would hold up and how well an egg soup would reheat. Like most soups, it tasted better with age and actually reheated just fine. We could finally taste the dill a bit and it was more balanced. That got me wondering whether heating the broth with the dill a day ahead would have helped. Not going to waste time finding out.