The general principle of cooking kharcho: cut 500 grams of beef into pieces and put in a saucepan. Pour the meat with cold water, put the pan on high heat and bring to a boil, then cook over moderate heat for 30 minutes, removing the foam. Fry the onion for 5-7 minutes, add peeled tomatoes to it, simmer under the lid for 10 minutes. Add zazharka, washed rice, spices to the broth and cook for 20 minutes. 5 minutes before cooking, add greens and garlic.
How easy it is to cook kharcho soup
Products
Per pan 5 liters Beef on the bone – 500 grams
Onions – 1 head
Rice (round or long grain) – 6 tablespoons
Tomatoes – 500 grams
Parsley, dill – 4 tablespoons
Lavrushka – 1 leaf
Garlic – 2 teeth
Suneli hops – 1 teaspoon
Salt and peppercorns – to taste
How to cook kharcho soup
1. Wash, dry the meat, separate from the bone, cut into 2 cm cubes across the fibers.
2. Put the meat in a 4 liter saucepan, pour 3 liters of water, put on fire, salt and cook, removing the foam, for 30 minutes.
3. Peel and finely chop the onion.
4. Heat the pan, put the onion, fry it for 5 minutes.
5. Pour boiling water over the tomatoes, peel and finely chop; add the tomatoes to the onion for 10 minutes of stewing under the lid.
6. Put the tomatoes in the broth, add well-washed rice, add spices and cook for 20 minutes.
7. Peel and finely chop the garlic.
8. Wash and cut greens.
9. Add garlic and herbs to kharcho soup, cook for another 5 minutes, leave for 1 hour.
About the classic kharcho
Additionally, for a real Georgian kharcho soup you will need:
Cilantro – a few sprigs
of Tkemali – 5 tablespoons
Walnut kernels – half a glass
Onions – 1 more head
Carrots are not used for cooking classic kharcho
1. Defrost the beef, if it is frozen, wash and put in a saucepan.
2. Pour the beef with 2 liters of water, salt and pepper, cook for 2 hours.
3. Put the cooked beef out of the pan, separate from the bone and cut into cubes; return to the pot for kharcho with boiling broth.
4. Onion cut into half rings along the bulb.
5. Cut the carrots into cubes with a side of 1 centimeter or slices half a centimeter thick.
6. Put tkemali, carrots and onions into the broth.
7. Boil the soup for half an hour.
8. Prepare walnut dressing: put the walnut kernels on a preheated dry frying pan and fry for 5 minutes over medium heat with constant stirring. Next, grind the nuts (you can use a garlic press), add chopped garlic to them.
9. Put rice in kharcho, after 10 minutes – dressing from walnuts.
10. Cook kharcho for another 15 minutes.
11. Add 1 tablespoon of suneli hops, put 1 bay leaf, add salt and pepper the soup, mix.
12. Cover the soup with a lid, hold for 10 minutes.
Serve soup with lavash or other Georgian bread.
Tasty Facts
What kind of rice, how much and when to add to kharcho
Standard proportions – 1.5 tablespoons of rice per 1 liter of the pan. Rice for real kharcho soup is used round- grain , it must be added to the soup 25 minutes before the end of cooking the soup.
Kharcho may turn out to be too thick, mainly due to the large amount of rice. If this happens, you should take a slotted spoon and scoop out excess rice. It can be put into meatballs or meatballs. Another option would be to cook more broth in a separate pan and put some of the thick in it. Then the soup can be frozen. But leaving too thick kharcho soup is not recommended – by the morning after cooking, the soup will swell to the consistency of porridge.
What is traditionally put in kharcho soup
– spices – suneli hops, coriander grains, hot peppers, saffron, barberry;
– crushed walnuts with a mortar (50 grams of peeled);
– instead of tomatoes, pomegranate juice is added to the classic kharcho soup (ideally – fresh pomace, without sugar), fresh cherry plum (half a glass), tkemali from sweet varieties of plums or tklapi (3 tablespoons) – cherry plum marshmallow. In extreme cases, add chopped prunes (8-10 pieces).
– from greens, parsley (greens and root), marjoram, basil, mint, coriander and / or cilantro are added to kharcho soup. It is believed that there is never a lot of greenery in kharcho.
– in addition, a quarter cup of soy sauce can be added to the soup to give it a spicy kharcho.
What else can be added
– for flavor when cooking meat, it is recommended to add 2-3 onions to the soup, and after the meat is cooked, remove the onions from the broth.
– for greater satiety, you can fry the onion and add 1 tablespoon of flour to the onion during frying – then the soup will be a little more nutritious.
– although potatoes are not put in real kharcho soup, for greater satiety, you can add a couple of pieces. From this, the soup will no longer meet the traditions, but it will become very nutritious. Add diced potatoes 20 minutes before the end of soup cooking.
– if the kharcho turned out to be too sour, you can add salt, pepper, herbs or sugar.
– a classic version of serving kharcho soup – with a lot of lavash or other Georgian bread.
About the consistency of kharcho
– Onions in the classic kharcho are cut along the growth of the onion in order to maintain its shape and prevent it from turning into porridge during cooking.
– Kharcho soup that is too spicy can be diluted with boiled water or broth , or a large portion of sour cream, bread and drinks should be provided for each serving of kharcho. It will be more time-consuming to strain the rice, selecting it and returning everything else to the kharcho, and cook new rice in the kharcho.
What kind of meat is kharcho soup cooked with?
– Traditionally, kharcho soup is boiled with beef meat (ideally, with beef brisket on the bone or on the marrow bone), it is allowed to use lamb, pork on the bone, and chicken (fatty parts).
– If lamb ribs are used for kharcho, it is recommended to fry them a little in butter with the addition of a couple of tablespoons of dry white wine.