2016-11-28
Hello my dear readers! Remember the Georgian grandfather from the story of Grigory Gorin, who, despite all the waiter’s tricks, firmly stood his ground and politely demanded: “I want some kharcho!”? So, since the morning of this rainy, gloomy day, I have been repeating this simple phrase. Then she “freaked out”, turned to His Majesty Google for help and typed into the keyboard the phrase “how to cook kharcho soup, a simple recipe” that only he could understand.
To my great shame, to this day I haven’t bothered to cook any food! By God! Our mother traditionally cooks this soup for my son’s arrival. She puts rice in the soup when her grandson drives up to her house so that it doesn’t get overcooked. What kind of kharcho with overcooked rice?
After Googling a little, I decided to contact my mother - it was more reliable. My mother got the recipe from Aunt Nino, who is well known to readers of my blog (she was scattered all over the Internet like carrier pigeons). The recipe for making kharcho is really simple. You need to stock up on the necessary products, and cooking will not be difficult.
Many culinary blogs are passionately arguing about how to properly cook kharcho soup: from beef or lamb, with or without nuts, with tomato or tklapi? Aunt Nino could even cook it from chicken and pork. And I didn’t see anything in this that would diverge from the canons of classical Georgian cuisine.
I kindly ask connoisseurs of Georgian cuisine not to throw rotten tomatoes at me. I don’t insist that my recipe is the most authentic, correct, purebred, etc. Kharcho soup is no less varied than borscht. And authenticity can be discussed up to the Turkish Spas, to the Greek Kalends and to the carrot ritual.
A simple recipe for kharcho soup
Ingredients
How to cook
Cut the meat into small cubes, chop the bones and cartilage, put it in a saucepan (with a displacement of at least 4 liters), fill it with about 2.5 liters of cold water. Place on medium heat, bring almost to a boil, reduce the heat to very low, skim off the foam. Now we are free for 2.5-3 hours.
Cut the tomatoes in half, grate them, and discard the skins. Simmer the tomatoes in a heated frying pan over low heat for 10-15 minutes (time depends on the moisture content of the tomatoes). Add Imeretian saffron to the finished sauce.
If by some miracle you managed to get real tklapi for your kharcho soup, 
then tear it into pieces, add water (150 ml), simmer for 10 minutes over low heat.
You can strain the finished broth, separate the meat from the bones, put the meat in a saucepan, pour in the strained broth, and add a finely chopped peeled onion. You can skip all these operations with straining - we really want to cook kharcho soup according to the simplest recipe? After 5 minutes, add the contents of the frying pan, bring almost to a boil, add washed rice, hot peppers cut in half, and bay leaf. Cook for 10 minutes over low heat, add tklapi or tkemali, stir.
Season the kharcho soup with finely chopped crushed garlic, crushed black pepper, season with salt, add the rest of the spices, chopped cilantro, turn off the heat.
My comments
- Use khmeli-suneli for kharcho soup instead of the indicated spices if you are confident in the quality of the product.
- Hot pepper pods can be replaced with ground red pepper to taste. The soup should be very spicy, but not everyone likes it that way.
- Which rice is better? I take the round Krasnodar one. Take any short rice that cooks well, but does not turn into porridge.
- If all acidic ingredients are missing, use good quality tomato paste (3-4 tablespoons).
- Similarly, we cook pork kharcho soup (lean brisket with cartilage, shoulder on the bone) and with home-made Balzac-aged chicken (not to be confused with the old one).
- Should I add walnuts? Aunt Nino put in either rice or nuts. I like the rice option better.
- Fresh shotis puri goes well with kharcho soup; khachapuri in a frying pan (recipe) is also quite good.
How to cook lamb kharcho soup
This wonderful simple recipe was provided by my friend and blog co-author Vera Ramazova.
Ingredients
- 1 kg of lamb on the bone (breast, shoulder). This amount will yield approximately 400 g of pure meat.
- 3 handfuls of round rice.
- 1 large onion.
- 1 tablespoon of tomato paste.
- 2 heaping tablespoons of ground walnuts.
- 4-6 large cloves of garlic.
- 1 teaspoon ground coriander.
- 1 bunch of fresh cilantro.
- Ground red hot pepper (fresh or dry)
- Salt.
Cooking method
Cut the lamb into cubes, add 2.5-3 liters of water, cook the broth as in the previous recipe. If the meat is too fatty, then let it simmer for 3-4 minutes, drain the water, pour in again and cook, strain, remove the meat from the bone.
Strain the broth. Finely chop the onion, brown in vegetable oil, add the tomato, dilute with broth, add kharcho to the future soup, add washed rice. Season with garlic, red pepper, ground coriander, nuts, put through a press, add meat, salt and, after 3-4 minutes, chopped fresh cilantro. Add a little boiling water if necessary. If you are satisfied with the taste of your kharcho, then turn off the heat and enjoy this delicious dish.
For spicy lovers, I advise you to try cooking it again.
I hope that our meeting today was useful for you. Please share this article on social networks if you liked it. Subscribe to blog updates - I will be glad to meet with you regularly. Good luck and bye everyone!
Always yours Irina.
What is a Tbilisi courtyard? I already wrote about this in an article. Do you want to immerse yourself in its unique atmosphere?
"Aznif." “Mamalyga and Jazz” in a Tbilisi courtyard.
From Wikipedia:
Kharcho is a national Georgian beef soup with rice and walnuts on a special sour base made from dried tkemali plums or tklapi. The soup is very spicy, hot, with lots of garlic and herbs and is much thicker than other soups.
In Moscow, on Volgogradsky Prospekt, not far from the bearing plant, there was a tavern. Often friends called us and went to the circle (that’s what this place was called), we quickly got ready and went to this tavern, which was famous for three things: 1. its beer, 2. there you could always get 100 g of vodka on tap. 3. and your own kharcho soup. People came there from all over Moscow, and of course not because of beer or vodka, that could be had everywhere, but mainly because of the soup.
We usually arrived at lunchtime. We took beer and of course the famous kharcho soup. We definitely took Caucasian flatbreads and some other meat and we had a sumptuous lunch. The food there was excellent, although in those days it was a canteen, not a restaurant.
I have loved this soup ever since. And although it is prepared in different ways, now I look at it differently, realizing that preparing real kharcho soup is not so easy.
Therefore, people often prepare soup similar to it. We will also look at “quick kharcho” here, in addition to the classic one, so that you can prepare your delicious soup simply and quickly.
Step-by-step recipes for making kharcho soup
A characteristic distinguishing feature of this national Georgian dish from other meat soups is the use of only beef in preparation, and in Georgian “dzrokhis khortsi kharshot” - means “beef soup”, tkemali plums and grated walnuts. According to the “classic” recipe, these three components cannot be removed from the dish or replaced with others.
Well-fed beef brisket (less commonly, shank) is best suited for soup.
Some chefs disagree with both the translation and the definition of the content of kharcho soup. They explain that there is “kharcho” and there is “kharcho soup” and these are two different dishes. The soup can be prepared with any meat or even without meat. I am also inclined to this opinion.
So, in soup, in everyday cuisine, it is allowed to replace tklapi - with fresh cherry plum, tkemali sauce, pomegranate juice or tomatoes and tomato paste.
Tklapi - dried puree from the pulp of the tkemali plum (cherry plum). Sometimes called “sour lavash” and prepared not only from tkemali, but also from any plum, sloe, dogwood) -
Also now, kharcho soup is prepared from various meats: pork, lamb, veal, and even poultry and fish.
Menu:
Classic recipe for kharcho soup - step-by-step recipe with photos
Ingredients:
We are counting on a 4.5 liter pan
- Beef - 1 kg.
- Rice - 2/3 cup
- Onion - 2 pcs.
- Bell pepper - 1 pc.
- Tomatoes, chopped 1.5 cups or canned in their own juice
- Tomato paste - 3 tbsp.
- Chopped walnuts - 100 g.
- Tkemali sauce - 3 tbsp.
- Khmeli - suneli - 1.5 tbsp.
- Ground coriander - 1 tsp.
- All-season spices - 1 tsp.
- Ground black pepper - 0.5 tsp.
- Vegetable oil - 50 g.
- Bay leaf - 2 pcs.
- Garlic - 2-3 cloves
- Sugar - 1 tbsp.
- Parsley, cilantro, dill, basil
- Salt to taste
Preparation:
1. Place the meat in a pan, pour a full pan of water, put it on the stove, bring to a boil, skim off the foam.
2. It boiled for half an hour, the foam was removed, now add the washed rice here. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover with a lid and cook the meat until cooked.
3. Place a frying pan on the stove, pour a little vegetable oil for frying.
4. Add onions to the frying pan. Chop the onion very coarsely. Fry the onion until transparent.
5. After a minute and a half, add bell pepper. You don't have to add it if you don't like it. There is no pepper in the classic. Fry for another 1.5 minutes.
6. Saute the vegetables a little, add tomatoes, either fresh or canned in their own juice.
7. Add tkemali sauce, as you remember, this is a mandatory ingredient in the classic version.
8. Add tomato paste.
9. Mix everything well and simmer for another 3 minutes.
10. We have the meat and rice ready, add our sauteing to them.
11. Add bay leaf, hops - suneli, garlic, ground black pepper, salt, ground coriander.
12. Finally add the ground walnuts and all-season spices. Mix everything.
13. Add a tablespoon of sugar. We are waiting for it to boil. Remove the foam and boil for another 3-5 minutes.
14. The soup is ready, only the greens remain.
15. Well, generously add a mixture of finely chopped greens.
16. Mix everything again and turn off the stove. The soup should sit for about half an hour to one and a half hours.
What a scent! Try it quickly.
Bon appetit!
Recipe for lamb kharcho soup Ingredients:
- Lamb – 1 kg
- Onions -2 pcs.
- Parsley root – 1 pc.
- Coriander (seeds) 1 tbsp.
- Corn flour – 1 tbsp.
- Rice – 1/2 cup
- Parsley - bunch
- Cilantro - bunch
- Basil - bunch
- Cherry plum pastille puree - 120-150 g.
- Tkemal sauce - (to taste)
- Garlic – 2-4 teeth.
- Bay leaf/black pepper
- Khmeli-suneli – 1 tbsp.
- Cinnamon - on the tip of a knife
- Hot red pepper – 1 pc.
- Saffron - a pinch
- Salt - about 1/2 tbsp.
Preparation:
1. Place the lamb neck in a saucepan and fill it completely with water. Bring to a boil. Don't forget to remove the foam before boiling. Cook the meat until done.
2. Chop the onion.
3. Place the frying pan on the stove over medium heat and pour in a little vegetable oil.
4. When the oil is hot, put the onion in the pan and start frying. It is necessary to bring the onion until lightly browned.
5. While the onion is frying, chop the parsley root.
6. Add corn flour to the onion. Mix.
The meat is ready
7. The meat is already ready, it should be soft, remove it from the pan and set it aside for now.
8. Immediately add rice to the broth.
9. The rice has been boiled for 10 minutes, add fried onions to the broth.
10. Add bay leaf, parsley root, coriander, black peppercorns. Cook for another 10 minutes.
11. Add meat.
12. I bought cherry plum pastila at the market. Tear it into small pieces and put it in a mug, filling it about 2/3 full.
13. Pour in the broth so that it dissolves and makes a puree.
14. Chop the parsley and cilantro.
15. Another 10 minutes have passed, add the resulting cherry plum pastille puree, don’t be upset if you don’t have it, you can replace it with tomatoes or tomato paste. This marshmallow is a little sweet, so if you use tomato paste instead, add about a tablespoon of sugar, to taste.
16. Immediately add a pod of red hot pepper, chopped parsley, suneli hops, saffron, cinnamon. Mix everything.
17. You need to add a little salt (try it and add salt to your taste). At the same time, try it for acid. Surely it won't be enough.
18. Add green tkemali sauce (it is freely sold in stores). Stir, try again. If necessary, add more. Cook for another 5 minutes.
19. Chop the garlic, put it in a mortar and grind it to a porridge, as finely as possible. Then it will immediately give the soup a wonderful aroma.
20. Turn off the fire. Add garlic, cilantro and finely chopped basil to the soup.
Well, our kharcho soup is ready.
Smells throughout the entire apartment.
Bon appetit!
Ingredients:
- Chicken – 1 kg
- Water – 3 liters
- Long grain rice - 100 g
- Cilantro and parsley - 1 bunch each
- Onions – 3 pcs.
- Garlic – 3-4 cloves (to taste)
- Carrots – 1 pc.
- Parsley root - 1 pc. (optional)
- Tomato paste – 1-2 tbsp. (of necessity)
- Tomatoes – 4-5 pcs.
- Walnuts – 10-12 pcs.
- Tkemali – 2 tbsp. (or a little lemon juice - to taste)
- Potatoes – 2-3 pcs. (optional)
Spices:
- Bay leaf – 3 pcs.
- Salt - to taste
- Ground black and red pepper - to taste
- Allspice – 4-6 peas
- Ground coriander – 1-2 tsp. (taste)
- Khmeli-suneli – 2-3 tsp. (taste)
- Savory - to taste
- Paprika – 1 tbsp
- 1 kg. chicken soup set
- 500 gr. chicken breast
- Bay leaf
- Peppercorns
Preparation:
1. Cut the chicken into large pieces. The pieces should have a bone to make the broth richer.
2. Place the chicken pieces in a pan and fill with water. Place the pan on medium heat. Bring to a boil.
3. Remove the foam with a slotted spoon. I sometimes remove it with a spoon with holes. When the water boils, you can drain it, rinse the chicken and the pan and refill with new fresh water. This should be done depending on what kind of chicken you are cooking. If it’s homemade, then of course all this is unnecessary. For example, we always try to buy production from the same company. And with chicken like this, I don’t change the water completely.
4. Cut the carrots into large pieces and deeply cut the peeled onion head crosswise.
5. Wash the greens and separate the bottom from the top.
6. We will need the lower part (root) for broth and the upper part for soup.
7. When the water boils and stops forming foam, add greens, onions, pieces of carrots and spices: bay leaf, a few peas of allspice and black pepper. Bring the broth to a boil and reduce the heat to low so that the broth is constantly simmering. Cook the broth for 40-60 minutes. The longer we cook, the tastier it is. Of course, if you are in a hurry, wait until the chicken is ready and you can use the broth.
8. When the broth is ready, remove the vegetables, herbs and chicken.
9. Strain the broth. I do this either through a very fine sieve or through cheesecloth so as not to miss the peppers and other leftovers. Bring the broth back to a boil.
10. At this point you can add potatoes if desired. You already know that potatoes are usually not used in kharcho soup. But if you like it, put it in.
11. Add rice. Before adding rice to the soup, it must be thoroughly rinsed a couple of times, so that the water remains clean after rinsing. Bring the soup to a boil again and cook for another 20 minutes.
12. While the rice is cooking, prepare the frying. Heat vegetable oil over medium heat, add finely chopped onion and sauté for 4-5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
13. Separate the meat from the bones and cut into small pieces.
14. Finely chop fresh or canned tomatoes in their own juice. If the tomatoes are winter, without a distinct taste, add tomato paste.
15. When the onion becomes soft,
16. Add chicken meat to it and fry for another 1-2 minutes, stirring constantly.
17. Add spices to the frying: a couple of spoons of hops-suneli, a couple of tablespoons of ground coriander, a little ground red pepper, savory, tomato paste, if necessary. Add a few pinches of salt. Add everything to taste, some people like everything, and some don’t like some of them. If you don't know, add everything according to the recipe. It will be delicious.
18. Add prepared tomatoes. Mix.
19. Pour in a little broth, mix thoroughly again and simmer for another 7-10 minutes.
20. 5 minutes before the rice is ready, add the prepared fried mixture to the soup. Mix everything thoroughly.
21. When the soup boils again, add nuts, paprika, salt, and ground black pepper to taste. Also add tkemali at this time.
22. Turn off the stove and add chopped garlic. The garlic should be chopped very finely, or you can even grind it a little, so it will quickly penetrate into all the pores of the soup. Taste and, if necessary, add more spices that you think are missing and add salt if necessary.
23. Sprinkle the soup with freshly chopped herbs. Close the lid and let it brew for another 5-20 minutes (as long as you can stand it).
All. Can be served.
Bon appetit!
Pork kharcho soup recipe
Ingredients:
- Pork meat - 400 g.
- Rice - 3/4 cup
- Onion - 1 head
- Medium tomatoes - 2 pcs.
- Garlic - 3 cloves
- Khmeli-suneli
- Hot red pepper - to taste
- Green cilantro, parsley
Preparation:
1. Cut the meat into medium pieces. If you have it, be sure to take some of the pork with the ribs.
2. Soak the rice. If you don't like very thick soup, you can add less rice.
3. Place the meat in a pan, add water and let it cook for 40 minutes.
4. Foam has appeared in the pan where the meat is cooked; all of it must be carefully removed.
5. Chop the onion. Place the frying pan with vegetable oil on the stove and put the onion in it.
6. Fry the onion until transparent, about 5 minutes, add finely chopped tomatoes. We had frozen finely cooked tomatoes. If you have fresh ones, great, add them. Fry for a couple more minutes.
7. Add lightly fried onions and tomatoes to the broth with the meat. Add soaked rice. No salt yet. Cook the rice until done.
8. Finely chop the garlic and set aside.
9. 5 minutes before the end of cooking (taste the meat, try the rice), add salt to taste (it’s better to add a little salt first, taste, and then add more salt).
10. Add garlic, suneli hops, and a little hot red pepper.
11. Add bay leaf, let it cook for a couple of minutes and add chopped herbs, cilantro, parsley. Let it cook for another 2-3 minutes. Turn off the stove.
Let the soup sit for 10-20 minutes, this will make it even tastier.
Bon appetit!
Kharcho soup - quick and easy
Ingredients:
- Beef stew - 1 can
- Potatoes - 4 -5 pcs.
- Rice - 1/3 - 1/2 cup
- Carrots - 1 pc.
- Onion - 1 pc.
- Tomato paste 1.5 table. spoons
- Khmeli-suneli 1/2 teaspoon
- Greens, you can dry them if you don’t have fresh ones.
- Pepper to taste
- Bay leaf - 2-4 leaves
- Citric acid - a pinch
- Garlic 4-5 cloves
- Salt - 1 teaspoon
Preparation:
1. Cut the stew, put it in a pan and fill it with water up to half the pan. 4.5 liter saucepan. Turn on the stove and let the water and stew boil for about 7-10 minutes.
2. Cut the potatoes into small cubes.
3. We also chop the onion finely.
4. Grate the carrots on a coarse grater.
5. Heat vegetable oil in a frying pan, add onions and carrots. Stir. Close the lid. Frying takes about 10 minutes, depending on your stove, a little more or less. The vegetables should be cooked.
6. Meanwhile, the broth has boiled and has already cooked with the stew for its time. We put washed rice and potatoes there at the same time. They both cook for about 20 minutes, so they're fine.
7. Don’t forget to stir the frying so that it doesn’t burn.
8. When the frying is almost ready, add tomato paste into it. Mix very thoroughly and fry for another 1.5-2 minutes, stirring all the time. Set the frying aside until the rice and potatoes are ready.
9. Rice and potatoes are cooked, add dressing to them. Mix well and add spices: bay leaf, dried dill and dried parsley, we didn’t have fresh on hand, but the soup, as you remember, is express, ground paprika, a generous mixture of peppers and hops-suneli.
10. It turned out a little thick, that’s okay, add a little boiling water.
11. Reduce the heat. Add a small pinch of citric acid. Salt, about one teaspoon or half a tablespoon, do not add all at once, try.
12. Taste the soup. If necessary, add salt, pepper, spices. Let the soup boil.
13. Squeeze the garlic with a garlic press directly into the soup. 5 minutes left to cook.
Can be served.
Bon appetit!
You and I have found a way to prepare a delicious soup without having the set of products needed for kharcho soup, and also without having time to wait.
Write in the comments, friends, what do you think about this? Residents of Georgia, of course, will say: “what kind of kharcho is this,” but in our everyday opinion? Share your opinion.
Video - Kharcho soup
Bon appetit!
No one can say how many recipes for making the familiar kharcho soup exist today. All the nationalities of our vast Motherland, in all the CIS republics and even abroad, prepare it in their own way. Only abroad it is called differently, but still it is not difficult to recognize our native Kharcho soup in it. Everyone has loved this soup since childhood.
And it is quite clear that the recipe for its preparation, which was passed down from generation to generation, changed its ingredients, more and more emphasizing its unique aroma. Georgia is considered the birthplace of this magnificent soup and that is why purely Georgian spices are present in any recipe. This soup cannot be prepared from nothing; it must contain all the necessary ingredients. The main feature of the soup is that its consistency should be thicker than regular soup. This is its beauty!
Recipe 1. Georgian soup Kharcho
I suggest you prepare Kharcho soup according to the Georgian recipe, which I brought from this beautiful sunny country. If you follow all my recommendations while preparing it, you will get a real classic Georgian Kharcho soup.
Ingredients:
Brisket - 500 gr.
Rice - 125-150 gr.
Water - 2.5 l.
Tkemali sauce - 2 tbsp.
Khmeli-suneli - 2 tsp.
Flour - 1 tbsp.
Bay leaf
Tomato puree
Making Kharcho soup. Wash a piece of brisket, remove the bones from it and chop it into pieces along with the cartilage. You should get 3-4 pieces per serving. Fill with cold water and place on low heat. During the cooking process, you need to regularly remove the foam with a slotted spoon and cook until half cooked. Sauté the onions together with tomato puree, to which we add the fat removed from the broth. Wet the rice and rinse. Add it to the broth along with sautéed onions and tomato puree. Continue cooking until the rice is ready.
Now comes the final moment. Add tkemali sauce, cilantro, suneli hops, crushed garlic, bay leaf, salt and pepper to taste to the soup and boil for another 5 minutes. When the soup is ready, be sure to remove the bay leaf from it. Pay attention to the consistency of your kharcho soup - it should be thicker than regular soup. Now pour the finished soup into white plates. It is in them that the unusually beautiful color of the soup that Georgian spices give it will be reflected. Bon appetit.
Recipe 2. Georgian soup Kharcho with walnuts
Ingredients:
Chicken - 1 pc.
Onion - 1 pc.
Flour - 2 tbsp.
Tomatoes - 5 pcs.
Walnuts - 150 gr.
Garlic - 4-5 cloves
Khmeli-suneli - a pinch
Bay leaf
Salt and pepper to taste.
Let's get started. Boil the chicken in 2.5 liters of water until half cooked, periodically skimming the fat from the broth. Pour a little oil into a separate pan and saute the finely chopped onion. Add the fat skimmed from the broth and the half-cooked chicken cut into pieces. Continue simmering for another 20 minutes. Add the prepared flour, mix well and pour in the strained chicken broth. After 20 minutes, add the cooked tomatoes and grated through a sieve. Pour out some broth and dilute crushed garlic and walnuts in it. Pour back into the pan with the soup, add suneli hops, cilantro, bay leaf and salt to taste. Kharcho soup with walnuts is ready - bon appetit.
Recipe 3. Lamb Kharcho soup
Ingredients
Lamb brisket - 400 gr.
Onion - 1 pc.
Rice - 40 gr.
Tomato puree - 35 gr.
Tkemali - 1 tbsp.
Vegetable oil - 1 tbsp.
Chili pepper - 5 gr.
Garlic - 4-5 cloves
Khmeli-suneli - a pinch
Ground cinnamon - a pinch
Cloves - a pinch
Adjika - 15 gr.
Water - 1 liter.
Let's make soup together. The washed and dried lamb brisket is cut into large pieces (30 g) and placed in a pan with water. Place on medium heat and cook. Finely chop the onion, add freshly ground pepper and move well with your fingers! Sauté tomato puree in vegetable oil. Finely chop the greens and garlic, and fill the rice cereal with water.
Add onion mixed with pepper, tomato puree and washed rice to the broth. Continue cooking until the rice is ready. Before finishing cooking the soup, add garlic mixed with herbs, tkemali, chili peppers, chili peppers peeled and cut into rings, cinnamon, cloves, hops-suneli and adjika. Cook for another 5 minutes. Our Kharcho soup is all ready. Pour it into portioned plates, adding pieces of brisket to each of them. Decorate with greenery, and... Bon appetit everyone!!! This soup has incredible taste, and most importantly, it cooks quickly!
Recipe 4. Soup - Megrelian Kharcho
This soup is unique in its consistency. It’s difficult to call it a soup - it’s more like a sauce. But they still serve it as kharcho soup. I can’t remember exactly where I brought this recipe from, but I remember for sure that the first time I tried it was in Gagra back in my student years. This soup was served with the famous Georgian lavash, which should be dipped into the soup and eaten with your hands. The taste is great.
Ingredients:
Walnuts - 150 gr.
Veal - 1 kg.
Onion - 3 heads
Adjika Megrelian - 25 gr.
Tomato puree - 5-6 tbsp.
Khmeli-suneli - 1 tbsp.
Dry white wine - 150 gr.
Ground coriander - a pinch
Butter - 50 gr.
Sea salt and ground black pepper
We prepare excellent Kharcho soup. We wash the veal or beef tenderloin well, dry it and cut into cubes as for goulash. Heat the butter in a frying pan and fry the pieces of meat on all sides for about 2-3 minutes. We need to “seal” each piece. Once you see a nice crust on the meat, transfer it to a large pan.
Peel the onion, chop it into small cubes and add to the fried meat. Fill with white table wine. If your meat is lean, it would be nice to add a piece of butter. Turn on medium heat and place the pan on it. As soon as you see the contents of the pan begin to boil, immediately reduce the heat to low and continue to simmer for another half hour.
During this time, pour the peeled nuts into a mortar and pound them well. If you don’t have a mortar, you can put it through a meat grinder. They don’t do this in Georgia, because Georgian cuisine does not recognize “fashionable equipment”. They believe that all products should be processed by hand. When you crush the walnuts in a mortar, they will release a wonderful nut oil. And if you pass walnut kernels through an electric meat grinder, you will not see this oil. This is the opinion of Georgian chefs! And that's a fact!
Our meat has already been on the stove for 30 minutes. Select one piece of meat and taste its readiness. It should melt in your mouth, and the onion should disappear altogether. Now it’s time to pour the nuts and spices crushed in a mortar into the pan. Add pepper, salt and a jar of adjika. Carefully! Adjika is very spicy, and if your family does not like spicy dishes, then you should add a smaller amount of adjika. Some chefs also suggest adding sourness to the kharcho - a drop of wine vinegar. Attention! If you use this advice, then I want to warn you - be sure to first remove the pan from the heat for 5 minutes and only then add the vinegar. Otherwise, your nuts will begin to darken dramatically, which is unacceptable in this soup. Personally, I never add vinegar, and it turns out no less tasty. Simmer for another 20 minutes, and Megrelian kharcho soup can already be served. Pour into beautiful white plates, be sure to serve lavash or gomi, and... bon appetit. Enjoy the taste of a unique recipe for kharcho soup.
Recipe 5. Kharcho soup from smoked pork
Raw smoked pork - 1 kg.
Rice - 100 gr.
Onion - 2 pcs.
Carrots - 2 pcs.
Tomato paste - 150 gr.
Lard 70 gr.
Basil
Salt and pepper to taste
Bay leaf - 2 pcs.
Cooking procedure. Peel the onions and carrots. Cut the raw smoked pork, carrots and onions into cubes and put them in a saucepan to simmer. Add tomato paste. Simmer for 15-20 minutes over low heat, and then put everything in a saucepan and pour boiling water over it. Bring to a boil, add spices and salt to taste. Boil the rice in a separate pan and add it to the soup when cooked. Continue cooking for another half hour. 5 minutes before cooking, add bay leaf. Set aside from the heat, remove the bay leaf from the pan and pour the prepared soup into bowls. Extraordinary yummy. Give it a try.
Recipe 6. Kharcho soup
Ingredients:
Pork - 500 gr.
Onion - 2 pcs.
Garlic - 3-4 cloves
Fresh tomatoes - 4 pcs.
Bell pepper - 3 pcs.
Boiled rice - 500 gr.
Broth or water - 1.5 liters
Pistachios - 100 gr.
Thyme - a pinch
Vegetable oil
Salt and pepper to taste
Let's start the cooking process. Cut the bell pepper and meat into cubes. Finely chop the onion, tomatoes and garlic
In a pan with heated vegetable oil, fry the onion until golden brown, add the diced bell pepper, then add the tomatoes and chili sauce.
Pour the broth into the pan and bring to a boil. Now add the peeled garlic and boiled rice. Salt to taste. Continue cooking for 5 minutes. Add thyme and turn off the heat. Grind pistachios and herbs in a mortar. Pour portions of soup into plates, sprinkle pistachios and herbs on top and that’s it - Kharcho soup according to the Caucasian recipe can already be served. Bon appetit everyone.
Red hot pepper should be added to Kharcho soup in moderate portions. First, remove the seeds from the pepper. The pepper in the soup should give an aromatic effect, but the spiciness is not for everyone!
The same caution should be taken with spices such as cilantro. Not everyone likes its taste. It is better if you do not add cilantro to the pot of soup, but place finely chopped cilantro on a plate. Let each of your guests add their own to their soup.
When you prepare Kharcho soup, it is very important to observe all proportions and the sequence of ingredients.
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Do you want to properly prepare a classic and also very tasty kharcho soup 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
- 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, add 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 in order to remove the peel from the tomato.
- Easily remove the peel and cut into cubes.
- In the remaining spicy oil from the fried vegetables, simmer the tomatoes with tomato paste.
- Wash the round grain rice several times until the liquid becomes lighter in color.
- 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.
Kharcho is perhaps the most famous national dish of Georgia. Georgian kharcho soup is the calling card of any Georgian restaurant. There are a lot of recipes for kharcho soup. They all have one thing in common - it is cooked only with beef broth. The obligatory ingredients of any Georgian kharcho are rice, walnuts and tklapi - thickened plum pulp (plum pastila).
In Georgian, kharcho soup sounds like “drokhizs khortsi kharshot,” which can be translated as “beef meat in broth.” Few people know, but the dish in its original form is beef in walnut sauce. People always argue about the soup recipe: how to prepare it, what kind of meat it is used for, how to cook real soup, what Georgian rice should be like, etc.
There are no reliable sources indicating the period of history when Georgian cuisine was replenished with a new dish. There is also no information about the classic recipe for Georgian kharcho soup. Most likely, the first recipes appeared around the same time when the Caucasian peoples mastered the breeding of livestock and agricultural crops. In the 2nd-3rd century AD. Rice appeared in the Caucasus. Wild plums grew on the territory of modern Georgia back in ancient times.
Due to all the peculiarities of the development of livestock breeding and agriculture in Transcaucasia, it is generally accepted that real kharcho is prepared only from beef, rice and plum marshmallow. In the summer months, when cooking it, tklapi can be replaced with fresh plums, cherry plums or tkemali sauce.
The soup combines the pleasant, delicate and subtle taste of beef broth with the almost imperceptible taste of rice, the sourness of tkemali, the aromas of fresh herbs and spicy walnuts. The special taste and smell of hot kharcho soup evokes a burning appetite and pushes all other matters into the background.
Soup ingredients
- Ingredients;
- 400 grams of beef on the bone;
- 4 tablespoons rice;
- 3 tablespoons of tkemali (or a piece of tklapi ¼ A4 sheet);
- ½ cup walnuts;
- 1 head of garlic;
- 1 bunch of parsley;
- 1 bunch of cilantro;
- 1 teaspoon khmeli-suneli.
How to choose products for kharcho soup
Begin preparing kharcho soup by selecting ingredients. Beef for broth for real kharcho should be only the freshest and highest quality. Very fatty beef, as is usually written in recipes, should not be used, it is not entirely healthy and excess fat will not allow the flavor to fully develop.
Broth for a cook can be compared to a canvas for an artist. A perfect portrait will look ugly if the canvas is poorly primed. The purpose of the broth is to convey to the guest the range of emotions that the chef put into his culinary masterpiece.
For rich kharcho soup, it is better to choose beef on the bone. The meat should be dense and elastic, and free of foreign odors. In natural light, beef has a light red color without a grayish or greenish tint. The broth from the meat of an old animal is more flavorful, but the meat itself is tougher.
Bouillon recipe
There are two completely opposite views on the same product - the first broth for kharcho. All cooks are divided into two camps: those who believe that during the first cooking, meat releases all the most harmful substances into the water, and those who believe that the first one tastes richer and contains the most beneficial amino acids and trace elements. Everyone chooses their own camp. Only one recipe can be considered universal; if you are not 100% sure of the quality of the beef, then it is better to drain the first one.
Rice recipe
You can use any rice, but short-grain rice is best suited for kharcho. The grains of this rice, round and thick, boil well. Due to the peculiarities of processing, the grains undergo mechanical grinding, after which fine rice dust remains on the grains. The layer of dust from the grains must be washed off by rinsing the rice well in water 5-6 times or soaking it for 20 minutes.
Nowadays it is almost impossible to taste Georgian kharcho soup cooked with real tklapi. An excellent substitute for tklapi is tkemali sauce. It is easy to prepare at home, but you can also use ready-made one. Vinegar or citric acid are the simplest, but not the most delicious and healthy, products that can add sourness, which is mandatory for Georgian kharcho soup.
Greens recipe
Greens are a must for any Georgian dish. When choosing parsley, cilantro, and dill, pay attention that the leaves and stems should be bright green and elastic. Fresh greens have white roots and no major damage. The taste and smell of fresh parsley or cilantro is strong and aromatic. To strengthen it, before adding it to kharcho, the greens should be rinsed in cold water.
And if it is served on a separate plate with vegetables, then it is better to rinse it in warm and slightly acidified water. But not hot, since high temperatures destroy most of the beneficial vitamins: the kharcho will be tasty, but not healthy. It is better to store bunches of greens in a glass of water in the refrigerator or frozen in the freezer.
There are two requirements for garlic for Georgian kharcho soup. The garlic should be hard and dry. Small heads have a more delicate aroma and delicate taste. In ripe garlic, the cloves can be easily felt. You should not take sprouted heads; there are practically no useful substances left in them.
Kharcho soup recipe, classic
The beef must be rinsed well under cold water. Place the meat in a large saucepan and add 2 liters of water. It is better to cook beef in one large piece. When cooked, finely chopped meat loses a lot of its nutrients and becomes dry. If the broth boils strongly, then its taste improves, but the quality of the meat drops greatly, and on the contrary, barely boiling allows the taste of the meat to be preserved. Cook the beef according to the recipe over low heat for about 2 hours, skimming off the foam. If there are difficulties with the foam and the broth is cloudy, then it is better to strain it.
When the meat is cooked, it is removed from the broth, separated from the bone and cut into large portions. Cooked meat separates well from the bone while it is hot. Place the cut pieces back into the boiling broth. A little more and the kharcho is ready.
Then add washed rice, a few sprigs of cilantro and parsley. Experienced chefs recommend tying the greens into small bunches when you first add them and removing them before serving. Cook the broth for about 10-15 minutes. The rice should become slightly soft, but not overcooked. Long-grain rice, when cooked for a long time, becomes soft at the ends, which immediately evokes an association with a dish from a factory canteen, so its use for preparing kharcho is not advisable.
At the end of cooking, add crushed roasted walnuts. To fry nuts, you can use either a frying pan or a microwave, but in both cases the nuts must be stirred well so that they do not burn. The degree of roasting can be easily determined by the smell. It is best to pound walnuts in a mortar or wooden masher in a wide bowl, avoiding the nut shells and partitions.
Next, add crushed garlic, finely chopped parsley and cilantro (2/3 of a bunch), salt, tklapi or tkemali to the slowly boiling broth. In kharcho soup, the sourness should be felt. You can use scissors to cut greens - very quickly and conveniently. The classic recipe for kharcho soup does not contain carrots, onions and tomatoes.
And lastly, according to the recipe, spices are added to the kharcho soup. Suneli hops are a product of high technology, everyone knows the name, but no one knows exactly how it is made. Therefore, it is better to take a ready-made option. The main ingredients of khmeli-suneli are dill, basil, coriander, hot red pepper, marjoram, and saffron.
Cover the finished kharcho soup with a lid and let it brew for at least 15 minutes. Before serving the kharcho, finely chop the remaining 1/3 of the greens and add portions to each plate.
Non-classical recipes for kharcho soup
Carrots, onions and tomatoes are often added to the dish. This gives a taste that is more familiar to European gourmets. The carrots are cut into large pieces, the onions into strips and added before adding rice. If you add tomatoes to kharcho, it is better to take whole sweet cherry tomatoes. They give a very unusual taste and extravagant look to the kharcho.
There are many more recipes for kharcho soup than we have described here; making it is a bit difficult at first, but then it is not difficult. It's all a matter of patience and skill, as usual. For those who want to immediately try real Georgian kharcho soup, we strongly recommend visiting a Georgian restaurant in Moscow; fortunately, they are presented in sufficient quantities in the city. Here you will always find a warm welcome and delicious food. Bon appetit!
