Yemenite Foot Soup

[rockycat]

Does anyone have a recipe for Yemenite foot soup? Either English or Hebrew would be fine. And I would ask on the Home Cooking board, but I suspect that people here would be more likely to be familiar with it.

[missybean]

I base mine on the Yemenite Calf Leg Soup recipe in Janna Gur's book "The Book of New Israeli Food". They key is the Hawaij spice mix used in the recipe. It is a mixture of black pepper, cumin, cardamom, caraway, tumeric, coriander, cloves and dried coriander leaves.

The Yemenite Bean Soup posted on Gur's website is similar. http://www.jannagur.com/108704/Yemeni...

We had the soup last night with our latkes.

[almond tree]

Thank you for this link. The soup looks great, as do the rest of her recipes.

[missybean]

My pleasure. I love the book. It was a gift to myself after my first visit to Israel a few years ago. Gur's Flourless Chocolate and Pistachio cake has become my go-to Pesach dessert.

[almond tree]

Yes, I kind of mentally bookmarked that one :)

[almond tree]

I made the soup (from the website recipe) for Shabbat this week & found it very disappointing. The hawaij gave it an overwhelming flavor of cumin, a spice I like but in much smaller quantities. The proportions were 1 heaping TBSP hawaij to 1/2 kilo meat & 2 cups beans (measured before cooking).
Is this similar to the quantity you used?

[helou]

I make Yemenite Soup (no foot in the name, so maybe it's a little different) with hawaij and that seems like a lot to me. I can't give you measurements because I just toss in the ingredients to make a big pot of soup, and I don't think I would start with that much.

[almond tree]

Thanks for the info. I reheated the leftovers for supper last night, but diluted the spice by cooking and adding more beans and potatoes. I also put in some hot pepper -- to balance out the cumin, which it did nicely. I saw another recipe for a Yemenite stew that called for fresh coriander to be added at the end. I didn't have any, but think that, together with the hot pepper, would really give depth to the flavor.

[missybean]

almond tree -

Those proportions do not sound right to me. This is the recipe for the Hawaij in the book (tho I tend not to measure and just eyeball the proportions)

1 TBSP Ground Black Pepper
1 TBSP Ground Cumin
1/2 TBSP Ground Cardamom
1/2 TBSP Ground Caraway
3/4 TBSP Turmeric
1/2 TBSP Ground Coriander Seeds
1/2 TSP Ground Cloves
1/2 TBSP Ground Dried Coriander Leaves

This makes a big batch that, according the the recipe, you use as a condiment when you serve the soup. I use it to season the soup as I cook it for an added flavor boost. I like having the spice mixture in my spice collection for other things as well.

[helou]

Oh, yes, I didn't give you all the ingredients - cilantro (and lots of it) gives the soup most of it's flavor. I've also seen hawaij sold 2 ways: regular, which can be pretty hot, and another, specifically for soup (marak) which lacks the intense heat, and is probably missing the black pepper. I'm guessing it 's for people who might want a more intense flavor without having to make it so hot.

[almond tree]

Thanks, missybean & helou. Maybe my hawaij was part of the problem. I bought it ready-made from Machane Yehuda in Jerusalem. I'd never tried it before so I dipped the tip of a finger in to try it, & it tasted an awful lot like straight cumin (no heat at all, which surprised me). But I put it in the soup anyway, thinking that after it was cooked with the other ingredients it would be fine.
Missybean, your recipe sounds like a much more complex and interesting blend of flavors. I'll have to try it.

[AdinaA]

I hope you will share when you find one.

I do know that you can enjoy a very good bowl of it at Grill 212 on the UWS.

[rockycat]

My only experience with it is in the Yemenite Quarter in Tel Aviv. I found more than a few recipes on Israeli sites but I'm not familiar with their reliability the way I am with American recipe sites. That's why I was hoping that someone might have a tried and true recipe. I may just pick one and try making it this weekend. I'd say it's a good winter soup but the temperature here (in NC) has been in the 70's. That's warm even for us this time of year.

[cresyd]

No experience with the recipe, but the Israeli newspaper Haaretz has a recipe that should be fairly easy to find in their archives.