Greek Stuffed Marrows (Kolokithia Gemista) With Avgolemono Sauce

This is a delicious dish using the thick ends of marrows. In most cases one end of a marrow will be thinner than the other, so we just use the thick end to stuff. You can keep the other half to make something else - for example zucchini fritters. Avgolemono is a lovely Greek sauce made from eggs (avgo) and lemons. For vegetarians this dish can be made with chopped mushrooms instead of the mincemeat (I've tried that and it's nice!).

Ingredients

8 marrows

250g beef or lamb mincemeat

200g rice

1 large onion grated

4 tbsp grated marrow (from the 8 marrows above)

2 tbsp dill

100 ml olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

For the Avgolemono Sauce

1 egg

1 tbsp flour

1 tbsp butter

30 ml lemon juice

Preparation

Cut the marrows in half and keep the thick ends to use. You can keep the narrow halves to use for something else.

Scoop out the insides of the marrow halves and grate enough for 4 tablespoons.

Place the marrows in a pan (open end up) and set aside until the filling is ready.

Filling

Put the oil in another pan and gently fry the grated onion for 3 minutes.

Add the mincemeat and stir well for 5 minutes.

Add the rice and stir well for 3 minutes.

Add the grated marrow, dill, salt and pepper along with 1 cup water and stir well.

Simmer for 15 minutes.

Fill the marrows with the filling mixture and add enough water to the pan to come up to halfway up the marrows.

Bring to the boil and simmer for 20 minutes.

Turn off the heat but leave the pan on to keep it warm while you are making the avgolemono sauce.

Avgolemono Sauce

Remove very carefully any remaining liquid from the pan with the marrows, put in a bowl and add the lemon juice.

In a separate bowl beat the egg white well and then add the yolk and continue beating.

Very gradually add the lemon juice and water mixture to the beaten egg, stirring very well as you do so.

Put the butter in a pan to heat, add the flour and stir well for 2 minutes.

Turn down the heat and add the egg and lemon juice mixture.

Stir well for 2 minutes to make a runny sauce. If the sauce isn’t runny, you can add some warm water.

Pour the avgolemono sauce over the stuffed marrows in the pan.


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Eat and Enjoy!