Bryan's Israeli Chicken Soup

TexasKelly's Note:

This comes from my brother, who has been living in Jerusalem for a little over a year, studying to get his PhD in archaeology. He and his roomate created this one day by asking around on what to put in their chicken soup. He said the wonderful smell filled his whole flat and the neighbors all came over to ask what they were cooking. Since this takes most of a whole afternoon to cook, its a good weekend dinner. Very time consuming, but worth it.

• Total Time: 4 hrs 25 mins
• Prep Time: 25 mins
• Cook Time: 4 hrs

Ingredients:

Servings: 10

• 1 medium chicken
• 3 carrots
• 1 stalk celery
• ¼ cup dill weed
• 1 medium onion
• 2 small zucchini
• 2 -3 sweet potatoes
• ¼ salt
• more salt , to taste
• pepper

Directions:

1. Take out the parts of the chicken that you don't want to eat, remove the skin, but do not debone.
2. In the pot, Cover the bird with water.
3. Boil the birdie on medium high heat.
4. When the chicken starts turning white, add the dill with 1/4 cup of salt and some pepper.
5. While the birdie boils, wash and chop your veggies.
6. Don't cut the dill, as this will make it very hard to remove later.
7. When you've gotten this far, take the bird out of the pot and bring th heat down to a mere simmer for the time being.
8. Remove all the chicken meat from the bones, but make sure to keep the bones.
9. Throw the meat and bones together into the pot (except maybe small bones that you would miss when removing the bones from the soup).
10. Throw the potatoes in first, add all the veggies, then add the dill on top of everything else.
11. Bring everything to a boil and cook the soup for about an hour.
12. Make sure it dosn't boil too hard, as this makes the veggies taste bitter.
13. After an hour, take out the chicken bones and skim out the dill weed--this is the hardest part!
14. Boil the soup some more, until the potatoes and other veggies are soft and squashy and the chicken is softened.
15. Add salt and pepper to your own taste.
16. Let it all stand for about fifteen minutes, so the elements have time to steep without boiling.