Kharcho is a national first course from Georgia. The classic version cannot be prepared without ground walnuts, beef and tklapi (dried thinnest plates. The last product adds spice to the soup. Tklapi can be replaced with sour cherry plum, pomegranate juice, tkemali, but not with tomato paste! In this case, kharcho will no longer be a Georgian dish, but becomes something incomprehensible.
How to cook kharcho soup or any other Georgian dish? Just add lots of greens. Georgian housewives use absolutely everything - from saffron to cilantro and the well-known parsley.
History of occurrence
It is still unknown when this first dish appeared in Georgia. A long time ago, beef cooked in walnut sauce and tklapi was called kharcho. Over time, rice was added to the composition, and at the moment, Caucasian housewives consider it a traditional kharcho, which is made from rice, tklapi, walnuts and beef. Nevertheless, in every Georgian village, any housewife will tell you how to cook kharcho soup tasty and with its own secret ingredient. The basis of the basics always remains a steep beef broth with sourness, a delicate shade of walnuts and an exciting aroma of herbs and spices.
Currently, the recipe has been simplified and modified. Now in kharcho you can find pearl barley, vegetables unusual for him and almost any meat, up to chicken.
The Soviet period has a strong legacy in Georgian cuisine. The People's Commissar for Foreign Trade of the USSR Anastas Mikoyan agreed with the cook of the dining room in the Kremlin, and he was separately served kharcho, cooked in lamb broth. Stalin, having learned about this situation, ordered the cooks to serve lamb soup to absolutely everyone. And even according to the Soviet GOST, kharcho is fixed as lamb soup.
So, how to cook kharcho soup?
Meat selection
The traditional recipe suggests beef broth, but since we are not in Georgia, we can choose the meat component according to our taste preferences and wallet. Whether it's lamb, beef, chicken or pork, it's important that the meat is fresh. The best parts of the carcass for kharcho are beef on the bone, pork ribs or boneless flesh, lamb brisket, neck or shoulder and chicken thighs and breast.
Films and tendons must be removed from thoroughly washed meat (required), and then, if desired, excess fat and bones are removed from the meat. There is an opinion that the broth on the bone is more saturated and fragrant. In the case of cooking dishes for losing weight, it is better to remove all fat.
Ready meat is taken out of the broth, the latter is filtered through a sieve. The meat is cut into pieces, and if there are bones, then they need to be removed, and thrown back into the broth. After all these actions, a soup base is obtained.
The nuances of cooking
How to cook kharcho soup? At first glance, everything is elementary, but everywhere there are secrets.
In the already cooked broth, you can lay any rice, but not steamed or crushed. For example, round-grain rice, even when boiled, will retain an attractive appearance.
It is during the cooking of rice that fried onions, laurel leaves, slightly crushed black peppercorns, chopped walnuts, cherry plum or tklapi are introduced into the soup. Very rarely, but still, tomatoes are added to kharcho, but they must be without peel.
All spices and spices are added at the very end of cooking. Whether it's red pepper, saffron, suneli hops, adjika or coriander.
It is important to remember that if children will also enjoy soup, then there is no need to abuse hot spices.
After removing the soup from the heat, finely chopped garlic, chopped rosemary, parsley, cilantro, celery are placed in it.
It is also interesting that in each recipe not only the composition is different, but also the cooking time, as well as the sequence of adding certain products. In Russia and Belarus, potatoes, carrots and bell peppers are added. In Italy, olives and fresh basil are not spared. And in France, they modify the classic recipe for themselves and do not prepare soup without parmesan and cashew nuts.
Immediately after preparation, kharcho is not eaten, it needs time to brew - from half an hour or more.
Variety of recipes
How to cook traditional kharcho soup? There are a lot of options, and we will definitely focus on the most interesting ones. But first, let's look at the classic.
Classics of the genre
How to cook beef kharcho soup? The classic recipe is not so difficult to bring to life! As usual, let's start by checking the stocks in our kitchen.
Ingredients:
- - 400 grams;
- water - 2 liters;
- round grain rice - 4 tablespoons;
- cilantro - a pair of branches;
- parsley - a couple of branches;
- walnuts - half a faceted glass (pre-fried);
- garlic - one head;
- greens - optional;
- tklapi - one strip (or tkemali - 3 tablespoons);
- hops-suneli - 1 teaspoon.
Cooking
Washed meat is poured with two liters of water and boiled for at least two hours. Next, the meat is removed, and the broth is decanted. The meat is cut into pieces and returned to the broth. Rice is poured there, chopped parsley and cilantro are added. At the moment when the rice is already softened, roasted walnuts are poured. Before removing from heat, finely chopped garlic, herbs, spices, and salt are added to the soup. Kharcho cannot be without sourness, otherwise it is already some other dish.
Kharcho with lamb and prunes
How to cook kharcho soup with prunes at home? In fact, everything is much simpler than it seems.
Ingredients:
- lamb brisket on the bone - one kilogram;
- prunes - 100 grams;
- ground walnuts - a glass;
- long-grain rice - a glass;
- ripe tomatoes - 5 pieces;
- onions - 6 heads;
- parsley - 50 grams;
- cilantro - 50 grams;
- garlic - 4 cloves;
- green chili pepper - 1 piece;
- tklapi - a strip of 10 x 10 centimeters;
- laurel - 1 leaf;
- allspice - 1 teaspoon;
- spices - optional;
- salt, black pepper - optional.
Cooking
Cut the meat into medium-sized cubes and pour two liters of water. As soon as it boils, remove the foam and cook for two hours. After an hour of cooking, finely chopped prunes and salt can be added to the broth. After the meat is cooked, the rest of the ingredients are added: onion cut into quarters, rice and bunches of herbs. All this should boil for at least fifteen minutes. Mince the garlic and rub it with salt and pepper. Send hot pepper and finely chopped greens there, grind everything to a puree state. Pour walnuts, peeled tomatoes, lamb broth ladle into this puree and mix it all. Remove bunches of greens from the soup and add crushed mashed potatoes with broth. Sprinkle kharcho with pepper and add spices if they are lacking. Before removing from heat, the soup is flavored with tklapi, bay leaf and parsley.
Chicken kharcho soup
How to cook this soup and what is needed for this? A set of products can be intimidating, but the result is worth it!
Ingredients:
- chicken - 1 kilogram;
- carrots - one piece;
- celery - optional;
- parsley - optional;
- vegetable oil - 2 tablespoons;
- onions - one head;
- wheat flour - one tablespoon;
- round-grain rice - half a faceted glass;
- peppercorns - one teaspoon;
- coriander seeds - one teaspoon;
- dried parsley, dried basil, dried mint, dried tarragon and suneli hops - half a teaspoon each;
- adjika - one teaspoon;
- ground cinnamon - optional;
- tkemali - 3 tablespoons;
- ground walnuts - half a faceted glass;
- garlic - 3 cloves;
- chopped greens - 4 tablespoons;
- salt is optional.
How to cook kharcho soup? Both the recipe and the photo are a kind of helper. So let's start with the recipe.
Cooking
For this variation of kharcho, the broth is cooked from chicken, unpeeled onion head, celery root and carrots. After it boils, cook for at least one and a half hours, periodically removing the foam. While the broth is cooking, you can make the frying. Finely chopped onion fry in vegetable oil until light golden brown together with grated parsley. After adding flour, fry for some more time. After an hour and a half, remove the meat and vegetables from the broth. Add chopped meat, rice, salt to the strained broth. Grind peppercorns and coriander. As soon as the rice boils, wait 10 minutes and lay the nuts, all the spices and spices, adjika and tkemali. Stir, cook until the rice is fully cooked. Pour the crushed garlic into the soup removed from the heat and season generously with cilantro, celery and basil. You can see what the finished soup looks like in the photo below. Appetizing, isn't it?
Add a spicy one: with chili and beef
Since even a novice cook can cook kharcho soup at home according to this recipe, we will not be particularly distracted by unnecessary talk. Let's get started!
Ingredients:
- beef tenderloin with cartilage - 500 grams;
- water - 5 liters;
- round-grain rice - half a faceted glass;
- tklapi - a fifth of a faceted glass;
- garlic - 5 cloves;
- chopped walnuts - half a faceted glass;
- parsley - root;
For the spicy dressing:
- chopped parsley - 2 tablespoons;
- chopped basil - half a teaspoon;
- cilantro - a tablespoon;
- hops-suneli - 3 teaspoons;
- grated coriander - half a teaspoon;
- red ground pepper - half a teaspoon;
- saffron threads - optional.
How to cook beef kharcho soup? The algorithm of actions is simple.
Remove the films from the meat, cut into small pieces and fill with water, cook for two hours. Remove the boiled meat from the broth, strain the latter and load again with meat, but this time with rice. Add salt and bring to a boil. Boil for at least 10 minutes. Fry onion half rings with flour in a pan and send to soup. There also add parsley root, bay leaf, black pepper, coriander.
When the al dente rice is ready, add nuts and tklapi to the kharcho. Generously add greens and boil for another six minutes. Turn off the heat and leave to infuse under the lid. Crushed garlic and chopped cilantro and basil are added after the soup is infused. Bon appetit!
Pork Variations: Simple and Delicious!
How to cook pork kharcho soup? In principle, nothing complicated. An ordinary soup, only with an abundance of Georgian seasonings.
Ingredients:
- pork pulp with fatty streaks - 400 grams;
- round-grain rice - half a faceted glass;
- carrots - 1 medium size;
- onion - medium head;
- potatoes - one large;
- garlic - a whole head;
- tkemali - 100 grams;
- hops-suneli - 2 teaspoons;
- walnuts - 50 grams;
- sunflower oil - optional;
- greens - optional;
- salt is optional.
How to cook kharcho soup? The recipe is simple.
Pork pour water, add salt and put to boil. After boiling, remove the foam and boil for another half hour. Rinse the rice in several waters, cut the potatoes into cubes. After half an hour, both rice and potatoes are added to the broth. Soup is prepared from onions and carrots. Walnuts are chopped and mixed with tkemali, crushed garlic, suneli hops. The spice mixture is added to the soup and mixed. Wait until kharcho boils and turn off the fire. Let it brew for at least half an hour, then add a lot of greens and serve on the table in portioned plates.
In a slow cooker
We have already considered how to cook beef kharcho soup. The recipe can be taken from any of the widest range, adding certain seasonings and herbs as desired. Let's dwell on the next variation, and to help ourselves, we will attract the now so popular kitchen appliance.
Ingredients:
- beef - kilogram;
- long-grain rice - half a faceted glass;
- chopped walnuts - half a faceted glass;
- natural pomegranate juice - half a faceted glass;
- onion - 3 heads;
- parsley - one root;
- cilantro - optional;
- hot pepper - 1 piece;
- tomatoes - 2 pieces;
- hops-suneli - one teaspoon;
- garlic - 5 cloves;
- laurel leaf;
- wheat flour - one tablespoon;
- sunflower oil - 2 tablespoons;
- salt, pepper - optional.
How to cook kharcho soup? A step-by-step recipe involves the following steps:
Step 1. Cut all the necessary ingredients: onions - into thin quarters, meat - into medium pieces, grate the parsley root, grate the nuts along with garlic and pepper in a mortar.
Step 2. Select the baking mode and fry the onion with parsley root in a bowl for 7 minutes until it acquires a caramel color. Add the beef to the onion and fry for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Step 3. Dilute the flour in a glass of boiled water and pour it into the meat.
Step 4. Add all the pomegranate juice and 2 liters of purified water there. Add grated tomatoes and nuts, spices, salt and bay leaf to the soup.
Step 5. Rearrange to the extinguishing mode for an hour and a half.
Step 6. Add garlic with herbs at the end of cooking. Sprinkle with plenty of herbs before serving.
Cooking Tricks
How to cook kharcho soup? We walk through the process step by step and give advice:
- The broth needs to be clear. To do this, after boiling the meat, the broth is filtered until transparent. During the cooking of meat, onions and whole carrots are added to the pan.
- You can add an additional flavor accent by first frying the meat in a bowl in which the broth will be cooked.
- The combination of cherry plum and beef, even if the other ingredients necessary for the traditional recipe are not available, will turn any variation into a real kharcho.
- Tkemali should be chosen as sour as possible. The ideal option would be a sauce made from unripe plums. For a variety of taste, you can mix tkemali and satsebeli in equal proportions.
- Delicious kharcho soup will be obtained using polished or steamed rice. The fact is that such processing of cereals helps it not to boil soft and maintain an attractive appearance in the first courses. But you can’t get carried away with rice, otherwise the soup will become porridge with meat.
- To awaken the appetite and give the dish a pleasant aroma, crushed garlic is put after removing the pan from the heat.
- Kharcho cannot be poured onto plates immediately, it needs to be given time to brew, to absorb all the tastes and aromas.
- Georgians don't put onions in soup. They cut it into the thinnest half rings, scald it with boiling water and add it directly to the dishes before serving. Thanks to this approach, kharcho is filled with new flavors.
Homemade tkemali
When Georgian women are asked how to cook kharcho soup (recipes are different, sometimes changed beyond recognition, besides, they are known to be different in each family), they always answer that nothing will work without tkemali. How is this famous Georgian sauce prepared?
Ingredients:
- dark plums - 500 grams;
- cherry tomatoes - 5 pieces;
- garlic - 4 teeth;
- cilantro - stem;
- salt - optional;
Cooking
Plums and tomatoes are poured with boiling water, boiled over a fire until soft. Then they are rubbed through a sieve, laid out back in the pan. Suneli hops, garlic, cilantro and salt are sent to the puree. Let it boil and pierce with a blender. The resulting mass is poured into a convenient dish and stored in the refrigerator.
Serving and serving kharcho
There are many articles on how to cook kharcho soup, and there are a lot of photos of ready-made dishes, but for some reason there is very little information on how to serve this dish. Let's fill this gap.
It is customary to serve this first course in clay deep cups or in pots. First, meat is laid out on the bottom, and then it is poured with soup.
A more modern version of serving is in a roll. First, a bread lid is cut out, and then a bread crumb is taken out and kharcho is poured in its place.
The soup is accompanied by Armenian lavash. In most cases, it is served empty, but chopped greens and soft cheese can be wrapped in pita bread. This filling will perfectly shade the sharpness of the kharcho. No less popular are garlic buns and light crackers.
Khachapuri (Georgian cheese cake) also harmonizes perfectly with kharcho.
Rarely, but still there are cases when onion, yoghurt and wine vinegar are brought with soup. Onions are added to the soup. Matsoni serves as a sauce for pita bread or bread.
They also serve soup with corn porridge and herbs.
It is allowed to drink chacha or red wine with kharcho.
