Agristada and avgolemono both cleverly use eggs beaten with lemon juice to create an emulsion which thickens the cooking juices, much in the way the French use tangy crème fraîche.

Avgolemono is used with meat, fish, or just with vegetables. Fish soup avgolemono is usually cooked during the cold winter months, while lahano-dolmades (stuffed cabbage leaves) is one of the most iconic winter dishes. Besides the comforting chicken avgolemono soup,  magiritsa, is the festive Easter soup prepared with the spring lamb’s innards, flavored with scallions, and dill, and finished with tangy avgolemono.

The traditional, elegant avgolemono is often abused in restaurants where flour is used to thicken and stabilize it so that it can be endlessly re-heated.

Meat with greens, artichokes and/or other vegetables is sometimes called ‘fricassée,’ from the French chicken dish whose white, flour-thickened sauce has neither eggs nor lemons.

Here on Kea I learned to make avgolemono with the winter wild greens that are cooked with pork, while in the spring it complements the local, thorny artichokes that we braise with fresh fava pods and finish with an extra lemony avgolemono prepared using the wonderful, deep-yellow yolks of my neighbor’s eggs.

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Instead of sugar, I sweeten the sauce with currents. 

Beyond pasta, the sauce can be used on flat,  breads complemented with crumbled feta or any other cheese. It is the basis for the vegetarian mousaka, and also for the stuffing for papoutsakia (eggplant slippers), with the addition of chopped, sauteed bell peppers and feta, graviera or any other cheese, with or without walnuts, or other nuts.

Yields about 3 cups sauce, enough for 1 pound pasta      

1/3  cup olive oil

1 cup coarsely chopped red onions

1 tablespoon tomato paste

1 cup sweet wine, such as Mavrodaphne or sweet Marsala

½  to 1  teaspoon Aleppo pepper or 1/4–1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

2 1/2 cups ripe tomatoes (about 1 1/2 pounds) halved and grated on an onion grater, or chopped –not seeded OR one 16-ounce can diced tomatoes with their juice

1 cinnamon stick

2 bay leaves (or 1-2 rosemary or thyme sprigs)

Salt

A handful of currents or raisins, or sugar (optional)

In a medium saucepan, heat the oil and sauté the onions over medium heat for about 3 minutes, or until soft. Add the tomato paste and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes until glossy.

Add the wine and pepper and simmer 1 minute. Add the tomatoes, cinnamon stick, and bay leaves, salt and, if you like,  a handful of currents or 1 teaspoon sugar, or to taste.

Bring to a boil,  reduce the heat to low, cover and simmer for about 20 minutes, or until the sauce thickens.

Remove from the heat and discard the cinnamon stick and bay leaves.

If you like the sauce smooth, pulse with a stick-blender. I prefer my sauce chunky.

The sauce will keep in the refrigerator for up to 6 days, but if you like to make a big batch, you can freeze part of it.

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