Many people have heard about such a dish as kharcho soup. Many have tried it and know that this soup is very spicy and thicker than regular soups. It comes from Georgia and is made from beef. Although the soup recipe may vary slightly depending on the area of its origin, the main essence remains the same. Now I’ll tell you the recipe for kharcho soup, real, like they cook in Georgia, from ancient times.
A lot of spices, herbs and garlic, rice, walnuts and tkemali are essential components of real kharcho. Of course, now you can find recipes for this soup made from any meat. Not only lamb or pork is used, but even poultry.
But the name of the soup itself, when translated, contains a clear indication - beef soup. Therefore, kharcho made according to traditional recipe, will certainly be with a large fatty piece of beef.
Tkemali is a sour cherry plum that sets the tone for the whole soup. Of course, you can take it instead tomato paste. But this will be a deviation from the traditional recipe.
Another option is tklapi, large dried pieces of dogwood pulp puree or the same tkemali. They are also called lavash, although they are not bread at all. They have sour taste and can very well be used for making kharcho.
And as for walnuts, then in Caucasian countries they are used in most dishes, so why should kharcho be an exception?
Kharcho soup takes a long time to cook and cannot be rushed. If you want to cook good kharcho, give it enough time or don’t bother at all.
SOUP KHARCHO.
For preparation you will need:
Vegetables – onions, garlic and carrots
herbs (parsley, dill, cilantro, mint),
tkemali or other acidic base,
spices,
rice,
walnuts,
piece of beef.
Cooking process:
Traditionally, fatty meat, brisket, is used for kharcho. But you can also take a piece on the bone, it will also give enough fat and good fat. And it should also be beef, not veal; old meat is better than young. You should cook the meat directly in one piece; for this you will have to take a large pan and at least 1.5 liters of water. Cooking time for meat is no less than 2 hours. It is important that you get a broth with good fat, strong and thick.
The finished meat needs to be pulled out onto a dish without turning off the pan, remove the bones and cut the meat into pieces. You can, of course, cut into small ones, but it’s better to cut into large pieces, such that just enough for a portion. The pieces are returned to the broth standing on the fire.
Next comes the turn of vegetables. Actually, in the Caucasus they prepare kharcho without carrots, but you can take it if you wish, it’s not scary. So, peel and cut the carrots and onions. Carrots - in cubes, and onions - in strips, thinly and preferably not across the fibers, but along them. Then during the cooking process the onion will not boil into a mass.
The next stage is perhaps the most important part of the entire preparation. An acidic base is added to the broth (which is still boiling over the fire), that is, fresh tkemali or in the form of a puree. In the proportion for 2 liters of kharcho you need 2 tablespoons of puree or at least 100 grams of pitted plums.
Well, if you add sour tklapi pita bread, then take a piece of about 10x10 cm. You need to soak it first. Well, if there are no plums, no puree, no pita bread, you will have to limit yourself to tomato paste. The main thing is to ensure that the broth tastes quite sour.
Now you should let the soup boil again, wait 5 minutes and add the carrot cubes. After boiling it for 10 minutes, add the onion and after boiling, cook for another 30 minutes, cover with a lid and reduce the heat to a low simmer.
During this time, you can have time to prepare the nut dressing. Half a glass of kernels, carefully sorted and cleared of partitions and shells, is enough. For better taste It is advisable to fry them a little in a dry frying pan. After this, the walnuts are ground until a little nut oil appears and the nuts themselves turn into a homogeneous mass. You can also add and grind peeled garlic there. But you can grate it separately using a grater or a garlic press.
Half an hour after adding the onion and boiling, add long-grain rice to the soup, as it cooks better and does not stick together. The rice will take 10 minutes to cook. Then a dressing of garlic and walnuts is added. We haven’t forgotten about spices, we just need to add them at the last moment. 15 minutes after adding the garlic-nut mass, we proceed to the spices.
Traditionally, large quantities of coriander are added to kharcho soup. The peas must first be crushed, but coarsely. It costs less than a teaspoon to take them. Then saffron hot pepper, bay leaf, dry herbs (dill, basil).
Hot pepper is added to taste. It’s worth boiling the kharcho for about 5 more minutes, let everything soak in the spice. But here you need to watch carefully so that the soup does not burn, because it is already quite thick. Therefore, we turn the heat to low and stir from time to time.
Add fresh finely chopped herbs, more is better than less. The usual set is dill, cilantro, parsley, maybe mint. Cook for a couple more minutes and turn off. Now let the kharcho brew for at least 5 minutes, but it would be better longer. After this, the kharcho is ready.
The ingredients are indicated conditionally, since it all depends on how much soup you will cook, the most important thing to remember is that the kharcho soup must be thick.
Recipe for real Georgian soup-kharcho
Georgian cuisine is very diverse and original. Caucasian highlanders are famous for their hospitality, plentiful food and love for all kinds of seasonings. Their national dishes Most of them are spicy and very filling. Dishes made from poultry, lamb and beef are very common. One of these dishes is kharcho soup, which has become a frequent guest on Russian tables.
Classic kharcho, pride Georgian cuisine, must necessarily include tklapi (dried plum puree), beef and rice, onions, garlic, spices and khmeli-suneli. Georgian tklapi dressing is a must for real Georgian kharcho, however, you can replace it with tkemali sauce, pomegranate juice, tomato paste, tomatoes or fresh cherry plum. At the moment, housewives rarely use nuts, because... they combine very specifically in taste with spicy soup. In everyday cuisine, it is quite possible to replace beef with pork, lamb or poultry.
Classic Georgian kharcho recipe
Ingredients:
400 g beef (tenderloin)
100 g rice
80 g walnuts (kernels)
onions- 1 pc.
garlic - 2 cloves
120-150 ml tkemali sauce
2 teaspoons adjika
dill - 1 bunch
cilantro - 1 bunch
1.5 teaspoons salt
1 tbsp. spoon khmeli-suneli
black ground pepper(to taste)
vegetable oil (for frying)
How to cook classic kharcho:
Rinse the beef tenderloin, pat dry on a paper towel and cut into small pieces. Pour about 4 liters of water into a large saucepan, add the pieces of meat and cook for 1 hour.
Meanwhile, prepare all other soup ingredients. Wash, peel, cut into half rings and fry in a frying pan over vegetable oil until golden brown. Grind the walnut kernels in a mortar. Rinse the rice in cold water. Wash the dill and cilantro and then chop finely. Peel the garlic cloves and crush them using a garlic press.
Prepare Georgian sauce tkemali If you don’t have this sauce, you can easily replace it with 4 tbsp. l. tomato paste.
Place rice in boiling broth and boil for 5 minutes, then add walnuts, onions, tkemali sauce, mix all ingredients well and cook for 5 minutes. Now you can add salt, adjika and suneli hops.
At the very end of cooking the soup, add finely chopped herbs and garlic to it, then stir, turn off the heat and let the soup brew under a closed lid for about 10 minutes. Ready-made spicy Georgian-style kharcho soup can be served.
Spicy Megrelian kharcho
The consistency is not reminiscent of soup, but of a sauce in which you can dip bread.
Ingredients:
1 kg beef (brisket)
onion - 1 pc.
garlic - 2 cloves
80 g walnuts (kernels)
2 tbsp. spoons of corn flour
1 tbsp. spoon of red wine vinegar
bay leaf - 1 pc.
red hot pepper- 12 pcs.
1 teaspoon ground saffron
1 teaspoon ground coriander seeds
1 teaspoon Utskho Suneli seasoning
salt (to taste)
How to cook kharcho in Megrelian:
Rinse the brisket, dry it, chop it into small pieces, then put it in a saucepan, fill it completely with water and put it on the fire. Peel the onion and chop finely. Once the water in the pan boils, add the onion and bay leaf. Reduce the heat to low and simmer the meat in a saucepan without a lid until the liquid has completely evaporated.
Pour 500 ml of water into the pan and bring to a boil. At this point the meat will begin to separate from the bones.
Corn flour mix finely ground with crushed walnuts, crushed garlic, spices, finely chopped pepper, then salt.
Separate ½ part of the broth from the pan, cool and dilute the nut mixture with it. The result is a sauce that needs to be mixed well.
Add the prepared sauce to the cooked meat, cook for about 5 more minutes, and then remove from the heat. Kharcho soup in Megrelian style is usually served with gomi ( corn porridge), capable of neutralizing very pungent taste kharcho.
Do you want to cook a classic one correctly? delicious soup Kharcho at home. Then this simple method will help you realize your idea.
Cooking time – 15 minutes.
Ingredient preparation time: 40 minutes.
After cooking you will receive 12 servings of 250 g each.
Nutritional value per 100 grams:
Ingredients
- Beef – 500 grams.
- Tomatoes – 300 grams.
- Carrots – 170 grams.
- Onions – 120 grams.
- Round grain rice – 100 gr.
- Garlic – 2 cloves.
- Tomato paste – ½ tablespoon.
- Vegetable oil – 2 tablespoons.
- Khmeli-suneli seasoning – 1 heaped teaspoon.
- Salt – 1 tbsp. l.
- Bay leaf – 2 pieces.
- Allspice – 3 peas.
- Ground black pepper - to taste.
- Filtered water – 2 liters.
- Fresh dill - one small bunch.
Recipe
- We prepare the meat for rich broth.
The secret of delicious kharcho is fresh and young beef. It is best to purchase it at a market where it is sold chilled; be sure to ask the seller for a quality certificate.
- We wash the meat to remove excess blood, then cut it into large pieces so that the beef cooks quickly. Place in a saucepan, pour in filtered water, cover with a lid and set to cook.
When the water in the pan begins to boil, foam will appear, which will need to be removed immediately until it boils completely.
Having completed the above steps, reduce the power of the burner by one, salt, add bay leaf and allspice. Cover with a lid and cook until fully cooked for 40 minutes.
- We wash the carrots, remove the peel with a housekeeper, rinse again, cut into small cubes, see the step-by-step photo.
- Peel the onion and cut it into small cubes.
- Pour vegetable oil into a frying pan, add onions and carrots. Fry the vegetables on high burner power with constant stirring until golden brown.
- We wash the tomatoes, then put them in a deep container, pour boiling water over them and set aside for 2 minutes. We do this procedure to peel the tomato.
- Easily remove the peel and cut into cubes.
- With the remaining spiced oil from fried vegetables, simmer the tomatoes with tomato paste.
- Wash the round grain rice several times until the liquid becomes lighter.
- Remove the husks from the garlic and cut into thin rings.
- Remove the meat from the broth, cool and cut into medium cubes. We also catch bay leaves and sweet peas, since the broth has already absorbed the spicy aroma of spices, and finally filter through a fine sieve.
- Place fried vegetables and beef in a saucepan with broth, bring to a boil, add rice and khmeli-suneli seasoning. Cook the soup until tender for 15 minutes.
- Five minutes before the end of cooking the kharcho, add chopped garlic, sautéed tomatoes and sprinkle with ground black pepper.
If desired, you can include walnuts in the composition. They must first be fried to get rid of bitterness and added at the end of cooking the soup.
Serve real spicy kharcho soup for lunch or dinner, sprinkled with fresh herbs.
Georgian cuisine is so original in its taste that it has become popular all over the world. But a real housewife will make her own adjustments to any of the recipes, following her own tastes. Kharcho soup (a simple recipe, you must agree!) has long been prepared with chicken, but this has not made the dish lose its appeal.
A few words about the features of kharcho
If you look into the translation of the name of the dish, it sounds like “beef soup.” Which suggests that the classic kharcho soup is prepared from cow meat (although many believe it is from lamb). The dish is also satisfying due to the rice it contains.
What makes this soup special is the ability of Georgian chefs to choose the right spices. After all, the kharcho should not be spicy, but pleasantly spicy. Without this condition, normal welding will take place. rice soup, seasoned with tomato. Although allspice will give flavor, it is better to place the main emphasis on herbs: basil, coriander, saffron, cilantro, cumin. Don't forget also about bay leaf, cardamom and garlic.
At the same time, you don’t have to worry too much about collecting herbs, and buy a ready-made mixture in the store, selected specifically for seasoning kharcho. Or opt for the traditional “khmeli-suneli”. Then even chicken will not prevent the soup from becoming a Georgian dish.
Kharcho with chicken broth
Many people prefer chicken broths due to their easy digestibility. So in this case, chicken kharcho can be safely classified as a dietary dish.
If you decide to cook kharcho with chicken, our classic step by step recipe the photo will be useful to you.
So, first you should stock up on all the necessary components in advance
Below is a list of ingredients that you will need to prepare kharcho soup based on chicken broth. This will be enough to brew 3 liters of aromatic delicious dish by lunchtime.
- Chicken – 0.5 kg
- Rice - 1.5 cups
- Onions – 1 pc.
- Garlic – 1 head
- Tomato paste – 2 – 3 tbsp.
- Salt, spices to taste
To prepare kharcho, some people also use carrots, fresh tomatoes and potatoes, but this is at the discretion of the housewife.
Cooking process
First you need to rinse the chicken and cook broth from it. Here it is necessary to take into account this point - if you need to get a rich broth, then the bird is dipped into boiling water. By filling it with cold water and putting it on the fire, you will get a weaker broth, but the chicken will cook faster and become softer.
When the meat is ready, it is removed from the pan, cooled and cut into portions. Then they proceed according to the following algorithm.
The finished broth should be strained through 2 layers of gauze - this will make it transparent.
If you plan to add potatoes to the soup, now is the time to put them in the pan. Tubers should be no more than 1/3 of the total volume of the dish. You can cut it into small cubes or into longitudinal strips (as you like).
After boiling the potatoes until half cooked, add washed rice to the broth. It is better to take cereals that are not steamed or crushed, but choose a starchy variety.
At the same time, frying is done in vegetable oil - from chopped onions and tomato paste. You can fry grated carrots, as well as slices fresh tomato(they are the ones who will give the kharcho the necessary sourness). First, remove the skin from the tomato by dousing the vegetable first with boiling water, then with a stream of cold water.
Before removing the roast from the heat, add garlic. If the goal is to make the soup spicier, then the cloves should be chopped (preferably crushed). Leaving them whole results in a richer aroma. But then, when serving the soup, you need to carefully ensure that the garlic cloves do not fall into the plate.
When the rice is ready (it needs about 7 minutes, no more), the soup is salted and the frying is added, and spices are added.
Now all that remains is to turn off the heat and let the kharcho brew for a few minutes. When serving, put chicken meat into each serving plate and add a little butter and crushed with fresh herbs.
But you can put this entire addition on dining table so that everyone can use these ingredients to their own taste. Perhaps someone would like to add a spoonful of sour cream to the kharcho.
Nice variations
So that the kharcho soup with chicken would definitely look like Georgian dish, you should make some additions to the recipe described above.
- You can add a pleasant sourness if you mix tomato paste with Tkemali sauce, or add a little plum of this variety to the soup (as you do when preparing real kharcho).
- If someone likes it more pomegranate juice, then you shouldn’t add it to the fry, pour a little directly into the pan at the end of cooking.
- In Georgia, spices are first mixed with salt and only then the mixture is added to the soup. And the bay leaf is placed in the pan at the beginning of cooking, when the broth is still being cooked (then the bay leaf should be removed).
- You don’t have to add grated carrots to the roast, but put them in the broth before removing the chicken from it.
- If someone doesn’t like cilantro, it can be replaced with a more familiar spice - tarragon or parsley.
- A real recipe for chicken kharcho soup is inconceivable without walnuts. They go well with chicken dishes. It is recommended to pre-roast the nuts (but do not overcook them). If you chop the kernels before adding them to the soup along with spices, the nuts will give the dish an unusual aroma.
Well, to really match national cuisine Georgians, instead of bread, real lavash should be served at the table.
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