If you’ve tasted a well-made avgolemono with its velvety texture and lemony flavor, you’ll long to make it at home. And it’s so simple, particularly if you’ve just boned a chicken breast and have the rib cage handy, or if you have some chicken broth in your freezer.

Ingredients

　　1 small chopped onion and several fresh parsley stems, if you’re making the stock from scratch

　　1 egg, beaten

　　Salt

　　1/2 lemon

Garnish

　　A scattering of chopped fresh parsley leaves

　　Put the chicken bones and giblets, if using, in a small pot along with the onion and parsley stems, and cover with 1 3/4 cups water. Bring to a boil, then simmer, covered, for about 30 minutes; you should now have about 1 cup of broth. With a slotted spoon, fish out the parsley stems, onion pieces, chicken bones, and giblets, and discard. (If you’re using ready made stock instead, just bring a cup of it to a boil.) Toward the end of the cooking time, scoop up 1/4 cup of broth and pour slowly into the beaten egg as you whisk steadily. Pour this tempered egg back into the broth, continuing to whisk over very low heat until lightly thickened. Season the soup with salt and several squeezes of the lemon. Taste, and determine how much you want; it should be quite lemony. Scatter in the cooked chicken, and let warm through; then top your bowl of this blissful soup with a little chopped parsley.

　　The Pleasures of Cooking for One by Judith Jones. Copyright © 2009 by Judith Jones. Published by Knopf. All Rights Reserved.Judith Jones is senior editor and vice president at Alfred A. Knopf. She is the author of The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food and the coauthor with Evan Jones (her late husband) of three books: The Book of Bread; Knead It, Punch It, Bake It!; and The Book of New New England Cookery. She also collaborated with Angus Cameron on The L. L. Bean Game and Fish Cookbook, and has contributed to Vogue, Saveur, and Gourmet magazines. In 2006, she was awarded the James Beard Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award. She lives in New York City and Vermont.