"Red" Giouvarlakia

Few tourists in Greece ever get to know the dishes that make us bow to our "mama's" comfort food.
One of these, is "Giouvarlakia", that is meatballs with rice, either in the form of a soup or with a thick egg-lemon (avgolemono) sauce.
Actually I prefer the second version - that's the way my mum used to cook it - so I like to pay homage to her cooking many times during the winter.
However, I'm such a fun of the dish that I experimented with this summer alternative, using fresh tomato instead of the egg-lemon sauce. The result was a fusion between "giouvarlakia" and "soutzoukakia" which made us all clean our plates with big chunks of freshly baked bread.
I thought you would like this version which is much easier, since it doesn't require the tricky "avgolemono".

- 750 grams of beef mince (or any kind of mince)
- 1 cup of rice, the type you usually buy for soups
- 1 thinly chopped onion
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 of a teaspoon grounded cumin
- 1 crashed garlic clove
- 1/2 cup red wine
- 500 grams finely chopped fresh tomatoes or tomato juice
- 1/2 cup of olive oil
- a pinch of each: grounded pepper, cinnamon, clove
- 1 fresh or dry bay leaf.

In a large bowl, we mix together the minced beef, the rice, the onion, the spices, half the olive oiland the wine. While mixing, add some spoonfuls of water until you have a very soft mixture. Put the bowl in the fridge and let it rest for about 1 hour.
In a large cooking pot we put the rest of the olive oil, 4 cups of water and the tomato and we let come to the boil. Then we add some salt, and the bay leaf and we turn down the temperature to medium. We form small balls with our mixture, the size of a walnut, and we drop them carefully into the simmering sauce.
Cover the pot and let it simmer until the rice is well cooked (about 1 hour). In the meantime you can add some hot water if you thing it is needed.
The final consictency should be that of a thick soup as it will become thicker when it cools. It can be eaten warm or in room temperature, after all that's why I cook it in the summer.
You can also experiment with your favorite spices, either inside the mixture or in the broth.
Finally if you want the original version, don't add tomato in the beginning but when the food is cooked add the "avgolemono" sauce.
You can see my step-by-step tecnique here.

You can also find the recipe on my sister Greek blog here.



Kali orexi!