Vegan Magiritsa – Greek Easter Soup
What is “magiritsa.”
Unlike its vegan counterpart, the original magiritsa (in Greek: μαγειρίτσα, pronounced: mah-yee-reet-sah) is a Greek soup made from lamb offal, associated with the Easter (Pascha) tradition of the Greek Orthodox Church. Greek-Americans and Greek-Canadians sometimes call it Easter soup, Easter Sunday soup, or Easter lamb soup. In some parts of Greece, most notably Thessaly, it is not a soup but a fricassee, which contains only offal and a large variety of vegetables but no onions or rice, as in the soup.
Magiritsa is eaten to break the fast of the Greek Orthodox Great Lent, which runs 40 days before Easter. Its role and ingredients result from its association with the roasted lamb traditionally served at the Easter meal; in its traditional form, magiritsa is made with offal (removed from the lamb before roasting), flavored with herbs and “avgolemono” (an egg-lemon sauce). Prepared on Holy Saturday along with the next day’s lamb, magiritsa is consumed immediately after the midnight Divine Liturgy. When eaten on Easter-Sunday brunch after church, salad and cheese, “tsoureki” sweetbread, and hard-boiled, dyed red eggs usually accompany it.
[source: wikipedia]
Why make it vegan?
Reimagining classic dishes through an eco-friendly lens helps not only expand our culinary horizons but also reduce our environmental footprint and promote animal welfare. Now, I’m not vegan by any means, and I do not see myself giving up eating meat altogether in the foreseeable future. Still, I try to consume ethically sourced animal products as much as possible. That said, I have feasted on numerous plates of my mom’s magiritsa in the past, and after she passed away, I didn’t think anyone could match her culinary skills on the said dish. So, I decided to explore its vegetarian/vegan version instead.
Beyond personal preferences and health considerations, embracing vegan alternatives fosters inclusivity at the table, especially if you are hosting, and can accommodate diverse dietary needs and preferences without compromising taste or tradition!
Cue the mushroom species
Vegan Magiritsa is essentially a mushroom soup. I’ve been toying around with Chef Christoforos Peskias’s magiritsa for the last few years. It’s a recipe you can make, either vegetarian or vegan, and offers several alternatives to the kinds of mushrooms you can use. I’ll tell you what I found worked and what didn’t and explain my reasoning for all the tweaks I made.
The recipe initially called for 2.5 kg/5.5 lb of mushrooms to serve 6-8 people. I adjusted it to 4-6 servings as it suits my needs more and also cuts the cost! You can make it all with one kind of mushroom if you wish. Choosing the cheapest kind is the safest route if you can’t afford the fancy ingredients. Of course, a greater variety of mushrooms infuses more flavors (but that doesn’t mean that plain white mushrooms will give you a dull soup). The original recipe uses white Agaricus bisporus and its brown portobello form (same species, different stage of maturity). It also calls for pleurotus (Pleurotus ostreatus), girolle/chantarelle (Cantharellus cibarius), and trumpet mushrooms, but doesn’t specify which kind!
So trumpet mushrooms could either mean another kind of pleurotus, the Pleurotus eryngii, aka king trumpet mushrooms (but these are not very common in Greece, and Peskias refers to a small kind in his recipe), or the Craterellus cornucopioides, also known as the black chanterelle (same order and family as the girolle but a different species), black trumpets, or trompette de la mort in French! The latter are more common in the Greek market, especially in their dried form. However, since I couldn’t discern a black mushroom in any of his recipe photos, I decided to use yet another species in my trials, the Craterellus lutescens, commonly known as yellowfoot, aaand that was a disaster! (More on that later.)
Cue the mushroom saga
So yeah, mushrooms can be pricy! It is also quite an ordeal to track down the different kinds fresh in the market. In all the years I’ve tried here, I never found fresh girolle, black trumpets, or yellowfoot mushrooms… Last year, I found frozen girolle, but they were only sold by the kilo (2.2 lb) at 35€. Thus, I decided to trust Google for equivalents, measures, and substitutions and followed the dried mushroom route instead.
The consensus and general rule of thumb is three ounces of dried mushrooms for every pound of fresh called for in the recipe. My adjusted recipe needs half a pound of the hard-to-find girolle and half a pound of trumpets. And that was 1.5 oz of dried mushrooms per kind, converted to roughly 43 g for me (42.5 to be exact). So that brought the cost down to almost 10€ for the girolle and 9.5€ for the yellowfeet! (The black trumpets would have been around 10€ as well.)
Dried mushrooms must be reconstituted/rehydrated before use. Cover them with enough tepid water in a bowl and allow them to soak for at least 30 minutes. Once done soaking, remove the mushrooms, reserve the liquid, and rinse them under cool water to remove residual grit. Then, add them to your recipe and proceed as advised. The soaking liquid (now qualifying as “mushroom broth”) is absolutely worth saving! Strain it through a very fine tea strainer or coffee filter to remove the grit. You can then use it in place of some of the liquid in your recipe.
Cue the mushroom drama!
As if the mushroom saga wasn’t enough last year, I also had mushroom drama as the yellowfoot trumpets (Craterellus lutescens) were impossible to boil! The original recipe suggested adding them whole and not chopped, towards the end of boiling. It also did not suggest sautéing them prior, like the white, the portobello, and the pleurotus mushrooms. That left them cooking for roughly ten minutes, but I found them very chewy and kept boiling.
In fear of ruining the rest of the mushrooms (even though it’s practically impossible to overcook mushrooms), I took the soup off after fifteen more minutes, but to no avail, the yellowfeet were still chewy, and their long stems were too much of a bite for my liking. I also found their after-taste to be rather heavy, and let’s just say I blamed the dyspepsia feeling I experienced afterward on them!
I don’t know if fresh would have behaved better or if pre-cooking them would have made a difference. I substituted them this year with 250 g/0.55 lb more pleurotus (500 kg/1.1 lb in total), and the recipe turned out much, much better. If you insist on using them, I highly recommend chopping them finely or sautéing them prior in 1 tablespoon of olive oil for at least 6-8 minutes. Dried black trumpets are yet to be tested, but if I do so in years to come, you can bet I’ll update my recipe for you!
Vegan Magiritsa – Greek Easter Soup
Equipment
- hand mixer (only if you're making the vegetarian version/for blending the avgolemono)
Ingredients
- 1.5 oz (43 g) dried girolle (or 8.8 oz/250 g fresh)
- 8.8 oz button/white mushrooms (0.55 lb/250 g)
- 8.8 oz portobello mushrooms (0.55 lb/250 g)
- 1.1 lb pleurotus mushrooms (500 g)
- freshly ground pepper to taste
- 50 ml extra virgin olive oil (+ 1 tbsp for every batch of mushrooms you sauté)
- 1 large yellow onion diced
- 1 stalk celery diced
- 3 cloves garlic pressed or diced
- 125 ml extra dry prosecco vegan friendly*
- 1 bay leaf
- 6-8 sprigs fresh thyme (pick the leaves or use ½ tsp dried)
- 1500 ml water
- 2 tsp salt
- ½ tsp coriander ground
- ½ tsp ginger ground
- 1 bunch baby arugula (usually about 100 g/3.5-4 oz)
Avgolemono Sauce (vegetarian soup)
- ½ bunch fresh dill finely chopped
- 2 large lemons
- 3 eggs at room temperature (use 2 whole + 1 egg white only)
- 3-4 ladlefuls of hot soup liquid
Instructions
Preparation
- Reconstitute the girolle: Place them in a bowl, cover them with tepid water, and let them soak for at least 30 minutes.
- Clean your fresh mushrooms whichever way you want. You can use a dump paper towel to wipe them gently or a soft toothbrush to dust them off. These methods work best for smooth-surfaced mushrooms like the buttons and the portobello. You can also wash your mushrooms by rinsing them under the tap and shaking them well to remove the water from the gills (the area beneath the cap). The reason why many chefs are against washing them is because it's easy for the mushrooms to soak up water, and that affects their cooking. With the rinse-and-shake method, you avoid dipping them in a bowl to absorb water for a long time.
- Dice 8.8 oz button/white mushrooms and 8.8 oz portobello mushrooms into small cubes (including the stems). Cut 1.1 lb pleurotus mushrooms into pieces. The pleurotus stems are usually hard, so you may have to discard those.
- Use a deep, non-stick frying pan to sauté the diced mushrooms in batches. Use a tablespoon of olive oil per batch and freshly ground pepper to taste. Cook for at least 8 minutes until they are lightly browned. Transfer to a plate and move to your next batch until you're through. Set aside.
- Use a slotted spoon to remove the girolle from their bath, reserve the liquid, and rinse them under cool water to get rid of any residual grit. Set aside.
- Strain the girolle liquid through a very fine tea strainer or coffee filter to remove the grit and set aside.
- Dice 1 large yellow onion and 1 stalk celery, finely chop 3 cloves garlic, or use a garlic press.
Main Method
- Add 50 ml extra virgin olive oil to a big pot over medium heat and sauté the onion, celery, and garlic for 4-5 minutes.
- Add 125 ml extra dry prosecco, 1 bay leaf, and 6-8 sprigs fresh thyme , and simmer for 5 more minutes. (If you choose to make the vegetarian version, skip the thyme—we'll be using dill later on, instead).
- Add the diced fresh mushrooms and 1500 ml water. Some of it can be the liquid you reserved from soaking the girolle. Add 2 tsp salt and bring to a boil (you may have to turn the heat up a notch).
- Let the soup simmer for 20 minutes on medium heat. You may have to skim it now and then if you find the mushrooms foam a bit.
- After 20 minutes, add the rehydrated girolle. Give the soup a good stir, add ½ tsp coriander and ½ tsp ginger.
- Let simmer for 15 more minutes and add a little more water/liquid if needed.
- Turn the heat down to low, add 1 bunch baby arugula, and simmer for 5 more minutes.
Avgolemono Sauce (vegetarian soup)
- Take the stems off ½ bunch fresh dill and finely chop the fronds. Juice 2 large lemons.
- Separate egg yolks from whites and place in two different bowls. Make sure the egg yolk bowl is rather big (will explain why). You need two egg yolks and three egg whites.
- Beat the egg whites with a hand mixer on low or medium-low speed until foamy. They’ll go opaque and turn cloudlike but you will stop before they transition to soft peaks.
- Clean the beaters and start mixing the egg yolks until foamy. Add the lemon juice slowly while still mixing. The more you beat them at this stage the better, otherwise you'll end up with a smelly avgolemono!
- Use a spoon spatula to scoop the cloudlike egg whites into the egg yolks in batches. Keep the mixer on low speed.
- Once yolks and whites are combined, take a ladle of liquid from the hot mushroom soup and add it slowly to the “sauce” to temper the eggs. Keep the mixer on! (By now you've probably guessed why we need a big bowl.)
- Add one more ladle of hot soup liquid, slowly (still mixing on low speed). You may find that you need to add a third or fourth to achieve a warmer temperature.
- Turn off the mixer, add the dill, and stir it in. Dill, besides lemons, will also cut down the egg yolk smell.
- Add the avgolemono sauce to the pot of soup once you have taken the latter off the heat, and give it a couple of good stirs. Serve immediately.
Notes
*images by Athina D. Pantazatou for Kicking Back the Pebbles
Βίγκαν μαγειρίτσα – Χορτοφαγική (και αυστηρά χορτοφαγική) μαγειρίτσα
Equipment
- μίξερ χειρός (μόνο αν κάνετε το αβγολέμονο)
Ingredients
- 43 γραμ. αποξηραμένες κανθαρέλλες (αν είστε από τους τυχερούς που μπορούν να βρουν φρέσκες, 250 γραμ.)
- 250 γραμ. μανιτάρια λευκά
- 250 γραμ. μανιτάρια πορτομπέλο
- 500 γραμ. μανιτάρια πλευρώτους
- φρεσκοτριμμένο πιπέρι
- 50 ml ελαιόλαδο (+ μία κουταλιά της σούπας για κάθε τηγανιά μανιταριών)
- 1 κρεμμύδι μεγάλο
- 1 κλωνάρι σέλερι μεγάλο
- 3 σκελίδες σκόρδο
- 125 ml ξηρό prosecco κατάλληλο για vegan*
- 1 δαφνόφυλλο
- 6-8 κλωναράκια θυμάρι (τα φυλλαράκια ή ½ κουτ. γλυκού αποξηραμένο)
- 1500 ml νερό (μπορείτε να συμπεριλάβετε τον «ζωμό» από τις κανθαρέλλες)
- 2 κουταλάκια του γλυκού αλάτι
- ½ κουταλάκι του γλυκού κόλιανδρο σκόνη
- ½ κουταλάκι του γλυκού τζίντζερ σκόνη
- 100 γραμ. ρόκα άγρια, φύλλα baby
Για το αβγολέμονο
- ½ ματσάκι άνηθο ψιλοκομμένο
- 2 μεγάλα λεμόνια
- 3 αυγά (3 ασπράδια, 2 κρόκους μόνο)
- 3-4 δόσεις ζωμό από τη σούπα (τις μετράμε με την κουτάλα της σούπας)
Instructions
Προετοιμασία
- Γεμίζετε ένα μεγάλο μπολ με χλιαρό νερό και μουλιάζετε 43 γραμ. αποξηραμένες κανθαρέλλες για 30 λεπτά τουλάχιστον.
- Σκουπίζετε τα φρέσκα μανιτάρια με μια βρεγμένη πετσέτα για να απομακρύνετε τυχόν χώματα. Εναλλακτικά, τα ξεπλένετε κάτω από τρεχούμενο νερό, τα τινάζετε καλά και τα ταμπονάρετε με χαρτί κουζίνας.
- Αφαιρείτε τα σκληρά κοτσάνια από τα πλευρώτους και κόβετε το κάτω μέρος από τα ποδαράκια των λευκών μανιταριών και των πορτομπέλο αν είναι σκληρά.
- Κόβετε 250 γραμ. μανιτάρια λευκά και 250 γραμ. μανιτάρια πορτομπέλο σε κύβους, 500 γραμ. μανιτάρια πλευρώτους σε μικρά κομμάτια.
- Σε ένα μεγάλο τηγάνι που βάζετε να κάψει σε δυνατή φωτιά σοτάρετε διαδοχικά και σε δόσεις τα λευκά μανιτάρια, τα πορτομπέλο και τα πλευρώτους για 4-5 λεπτά, μέχρι να πάρουν χρώμα. Για κάθε δόση θα χρειαστείτε μία κουταλιά της σούπας ελαιόλαδο και φρεσκοτριμμένο πιπέρι (όσο σας αρέσει). Τα αφήνετε στην άκρη.
- Με μία τρυπητή κουτάλα αφαιρείτε τις κανθαρέλλες από το μπολ με το νερό και τις βάζετε σε ένα σουρωτήρι. Ξεπλένετε καλά σε τρεχούμενο νερό και τις αφήνετε να στραγγίσουν.
- Το νερό που μούλιασαν τα ξερά μανιτάρια δεν το πετάτε – μπορεί να καταναλωθεί κι έχει αρώματα και γεύση! Το σουρώνετε σε σουρωτήρι, στο οποίο έχετε στρώσει γάζα (τουλπάνι) ή φίλτρο καφέ και το χρησιμοποιείτε αργότερα μαζί με το νερό της συνταγής.
- Ψιλοκόβετε 1 κρεμμύδι και 1 κλωνάρι σέλερι, και περνάτε 3 σκελίδες σκόρδο από πρέσα.
Βήματα
- Σε μια μεγάλη κατσαρόλα σοτάρετε σε 50 ml ελαιόλαδο το κρεμμύδι, το σέλερι και το σκόρδο, σε μέτρια φωτιά για 4-5 λεπτά μέχρι να μαλακώσουν.
- Προσθέτετε 125 ml ξηρό prosecco , 1 δαφνόφυλλο και 6-8 κλωναράκια θυμάρι και συνεχίζετε το μαγείρεμα. (Αν έχετε επιλέξει να κάνετε τη σούπα με το αβγολέμονο δε χρειάζεστε το θυμάρι, θα χρησιμοποιήσετε άνηθο αργότερα).
- Προσθέτετε τα σοταρισμένα μανιτάρια στην κατσαρόλα, 1500 ml νερό (μπορείτε να συμπεριλάβετε το νερό από τις κανθαρέλλες) και 2 κουταλάκια του γλυκού αλάτι.
- Σιγοβράζετε σε χαμηλή φωτιά για περίπου 20 λεπτά. Κατά τη διάρκεια του μαγειρέματος ξαφρίζετε με κουτάλα, αν χρειαστεί.
- Στα 20 λεπτά, προσθέτετε τις κανθαρέλλες, ½ κουταλάκι του γλυκού κόλιανδρο και ½ κουταλάκι του γλυκού τζίντζερ.
- Βράζετε για άλλα 15 λεπτά. Αν χρειαστεί, προσθέτετε λίγο ακόμα ζεστό νερό ίσα ίσα για να καλύψετε τα μανιτάρια.
- Τελευταία ρίχνετε 100 γραμ. ρόκα, σιγοβράζετε για 5 λεπτά ακόμα και απομακρύνετε από τη φωτιά.
Αβγολέμονο (προαιρετικό – όχι vegan)
- Ψιλοκόβετε ½ ματσάκι άνηθο και στύβετε 2 μεγάλα λεμόνια.
- Χωρίζετε σε δύο μεγάλα μπολ τους κρόκους και τα ασπράδια. (Θυμηθείτε, 3 ασπράδια, 2 κρόκους).
- Χτυπάτε με το μίξερ τα ασπράδια μέχρι να φουσκώσουν και να διπλασιαστούν σε όγκο. Θα σταματήσετε όταν αρχίσουν να «στέκονται» και να μοιάζουν με συννεφάκι!
- Καθαρίζετε τους αναδευτήρες του μίξερ και χτυπάτε τους κρόκους με τον χυμό των λεμονιών μέχρι να αφρίσουν.
- Με μια μαρίζ μεταφέρετε τα ασπράδια στους κρόκους σε δόσεις ενώ συνεχίζετε το χτύπημα σε χαμηλή ταχύτητα μέχρι να ενσωματωθούν καλά.
- Με μία κουτάλα παίρνετε ζουμί από τη σούπα και το προσθέτετε σιγά σιγά στο μείγμα των αυγών ανακατεύοντας συνέχεια. Θα χρειαστείτε 3-4 δόσεις μέχρι να πάρουν σωστή θερμοκρασία τα αυγά.
- Αφήνετε το μίξερ, ρίχνετε τον άνηθο στο αβγολέμονο και ανακατεύετε με την κουτάλα.
- Ρίχνετε το αβγολέμονο στην κατσαρόλα με τη σούπα, ανακατεύετε καλά μια τελευταία φορά και σερβίρετε αμέσως!
Notes
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