Spicy Beef Soup

Last night I found myself confronted with a situation: I had about 1.5 quarts of an exceptionally rich and flavorful homemade beef broth, and no idea what to do with it. It's not that I don't have any soup recipes. I've got LOTS of them, but they're all ones I've tried before. And this broth was so good, I wanted to do something special with it. (How did it get so good, you may ask? Well, the answer to that is that I wasn't in a rush. I put it on the stove and forgot about it for 3 hours.)

This recipe is the result of that event.

Spicy Beef Soup

Ingredients:

Approximately 4 cups good beef broth, chilled, fat NOT discarded
Beef from the broth
Fat from the broth
1 carrot, grated
2 small onions, cut into semi-rings
About 1/4 c chopped pickled zucchini (you can use pickles if you don't have these)
1 c of the brine from the zucchini
2 T tomato paste
2 T ajvar (this is the brand I'm using, but any will work)
1.5 T dried parsley
Salt as needed
1 small potato, chopped into small cubes (I chopped mine to have about 1/4" sides)

Method:

While the broth is still cool and the hardened fat is sitting at the top, remove it and place in a skillet. Add the beef, removed and chopped before chilling, the parsley, and start to simmer the broth. Melt the fat in the skillet, and fry the onion and carrot until they are soft and slightly golden. Stir in the zucchini and the tomato paste. Allow it to cook gently for a couple of minutes, then add to the broth. Add the brine and stir in the ajvar. Salt to taste. You can add more brine and ajvar as your taste warrants. Add the potato, and serve when it's soft.

Notes: Vegetarians can use vegetable broth and omit the beef, of course. Actually, I don't like meat in soup and avoided it. It was still really good. If you don't have ajvar, experiment with paprika, or baba ghanosh, or chopped roasted red peppers ... whatever you've got.

Serving Suggestion: I think it would have tasted good with a little dill as well, but we didn't have any. I liked mine plain, my boyfriend (of course) ate his with a spoon of creme fraiche on top.