(I just can't get enough of this photo blogging thing).
You like what you see? Then do as follows:
Make a stock. Put chicken necks and beef bones in a big pot of water, bring to a boil, skim off the fat and scum, add an onion, a carrot, a rib of celery, a bunch of parsley, sea salt and whole peppercorns. Simmer for three hours, skimming the junk off the top occasionally.
Drain the stock through a colander.
Discard the bones and vegies (or feed them to the stray cats - they'll be your friends forever).
Wash the big pot in which you made the stock, and then use it to fry a chopped onion in olive oil. Add some salt.
Pour the stock back into the pot.
Add the following:
carrots
sweet potatoes
broccoli and/or zucchini
potatoes
celery
lots of garlic cloves (I like garlic, so I used six cloves)
chunks of pumpkin
salt
pepper
and the magic ingredient that makes a boring old vegetable soup into something special: two heaping teaspoons of hawayij. Simmer for about an hour. The soup tastes even better the following day.
There are lots of versions of hawayij, and of course you can make your own if there's no place to buy it where you live. I buy mine from the Amari Brothers (in the Carmel Market), who think my love for this Yemenite spice (and for their homemade zchug - a hot pepper paste) is absolutely hysterical. They keep asking me if I have a Yemenite boyfriend ("come on sweetie, you can tell us. Do we have competition?"), and make jokes about my being a Yemenite in my last incarnation.
What, Ashkenazi Jews don't know from good food?
