There is nothing better for a hearty meal than a mouth-watering hot soup. Perhaps every nation has its own recipe for the perfect first course. If you like rich aromas and spicy taste, pay attention to Georgian cuisine and its kharcho soup. There are many different options for its preparation, so everyone can choose the right one and try the famous dish.
What is kharcho soup?
How to cook this dish, what does it actually represent? It's pretty simple - it's spicy meat soup. It is mentioned in every book about classical Georgian cuisine. In order to try to cook it yourself, it is not necessary to be a wise culinary experience. You just need to remember a few basic rules and proceed to the recipes.
Most often, classic soup is made with beef. There are options with other varieties of meat, but this one was originally used, in addition, the translation means “beef soup”. No less important components are tomatoes, the famous Georgian sauce "Tkemali" and walnuts, without which many other dishes of this cuisine can not do.
In eateries, you can sometimes try a thick soup with tomato paste called “kharcho,” but that's not it at all. Although the dish can be quite tasty, it differs radically from a real Georgian soup. It is enough to try the right option at least once, so that doubts will forever remain in the past.
The right choice of spices
If we cook at home kharcho soup, in no case should we forget about spices. Coriander, saffron, bay leaf and hot pepper cannot be dispensed with. A special flavor also requires a ready-made spice mix known as suneli hops. It includes basil, dill, marjoram, savory, hot red pepper and mint. This is the option that is most often found on sale. If you decide to cook your own sun-hops, you will need red pepper, basil, parsley, celery, dill, bay leaf, mint, savory, coriander, fenugreek, marjoram, hyssop, and Imereti saffron. The amount of pepper should be slightly larger than all other components, which are taken in equal proportions. It is important that the herbs are dried separately and mixed only when preparing the seasoning. After the issue with spices is resolved, you can begin to search for a suitable recipe.
Proper Georgian soup
The dish has a lot of variations. The classic Georgian beef kharcho soup is the most famous in the world. To prepare this dish you will need four hundred grams of beef, a clove of garlic, carrots, a couple of onions, a few tablespoons of rice, a bunch of fresh herbs, half a glass of Tkemali sauce, half a glass of walnuts, pepper, salt, spices.
Boil one and a half liters of water in a large pan, boil beef in it, without slicing it. You need to cook over low heat. It will take several hours, after which you will get a rich broth. After that, you need to get the meat from the pan, remove the bones and cut a piece into small portions. Put the beef back into the broth.
Peel and chop the onions and carrots, add two tablespoons of Tkemali to the broth for every two liters of broth. If there is no sauce, you can add a little fresh cherry plum, tomato paste, and adjust the acid with pomegranate juice. Let it boil and after five minutes add carrots, and after ten more - onion. Cover and simmer for half an hour over low heat.
While the soup is cooking, make a nut dressing. Sort and fry the walnuts in a frying pan without oil. Pound them in a mortar until smooth with peeled garlic. Add washed rice to the soup and cook for ten minutes, then put the nut-garlic sauce in the pan. After a quarter of an hour, add spices, after five minutes, add fresh herbs, finely chopping it, and after another two minutes, remove the finished soup from the stove.
The second way to make beef kharcho soup
How to cook another version of a delicious Georgian dish? Everything is pretty simple. You will need a kilogram of lean beef, three tomatoes, three onions, a lemon, half a glass of rice, two tablespoons of tomato paste, a couple of cloves of garlic, suneli hops, pepper, salt, butter.
Rinse and cut the meat into slices, put in a pan with four liters of water and cook until tender over low heat, occasionally removing fat and foam. Cut and fry the onion in butter, after the appearance of a golden crust, add tomato paste to the pan and passer a little. Twenty minutes before the meat is fully cooked, pour washed rice into the pan. Peel the tomatoes and finely chop them into cubes, mix with fresh herbs, chopped garlic, lemon juice and seasonings. Add onion and bay leaf to the pan, bring to a boil and put the tomatoes. Turn off the stove and let the soup stand under the lid for about twenty minutes. Serve to the table.
Kharcho with chicken
Some do not like beef for its taste, and someone refuses such meat for dietary reasons. In this situation, you can make chicken kharcho soup. Take chicken breast, half a glass of rice, onion, three cloves of garlic, a few tablespoons of Tkemali sauce, three tablespoons of tomato paste, fresh herbs and suneli hop seasoning.
Put the chicken breast to boil in three liters of salted water. After a quarter of an hour, add pre-washed rice and finely chopped onions to the pan. Twenty minutes later, add chopped garlic, Tkemali, tomato paste or finely chopped tomato, spices into the soup, season with salt and pepper to taste. Ten minutes later, before the completion of cooking, add finely chopped greens. To make a particularly tasty kharcho, let it brew a little. A couple of minutes under the lid - and you can enjoy a wonderful dish.
The second option with chicken
Before making chicken kharcho soup, stock up on the right foods. You will need chicken, hazelnuts or walnuts, tomato paste, onions, seasonings-uchi-suneli and hops-suneli, as well as garlic, coriander, salt. Exact product ratios are not required here, because many components in Georgia are put to taste. Instead of uchi-suneli and hops-suneli, you can take seasoning for satsivi.
So, boil the chicken until cooked. Add chopped and fried onions with tomato paste, seasonings, coriander, crushed garlic cloves, salt to the broth. From time to time, try the broth - if we prepare the right kharcho soup, we select the ratio of aromas to your taste. Immediately add the nuts chopped into the paste into the pan and cook for about a quarter of an hour, then serve. The dish is very spicy and mouth-watering.
Lamb variant
Usually, Georgian beef kharcho soup is cooked, but you can cook it with both chicken and lamb. You will need two liters of water, a kilogram of meat, three onions, half a glass of rice, a head of garlic, a couple of potatoes, half a pod of hot red pepper, a couple of tablespoons of tomato paste, a bunch of fresh herbs, a tablespoon of soy sauce and red wine.
Lamb soup is tastier if you take ribs. They need to be separated and fried in oil from all sides. When the crust appears, add soy sauce and wine, chopped onions and chopped half of pepper to the pan. Mix thoroughly and let the dish simmer a little. After that, add the tomato paste and pour two liters of boiling water into the pan. Reduce the heat to a minimum and cook soup for about half an hour. At this time, wash the rice, peel and dice the potatoes. Add to the pan, add a little salt and cook until tender. Turn off the heat and add the garlic with chopped herbs. Cover and let it brew, after a quarter of an hour you can already taste the excellent soup-kharcho. How to cook it with chicken or beef is more or less clear, and after testing this recipe, you will learn how to create a dish of lamb. It turns out no less tasty.
Abkhazian version of soup
Abkhazia also knows a lot about the kitchen. It is not surprising that there is a look at the soup-kharcho. How to cook not the Georgian, but the Abkhaz version of the dish? The difference from the classical Kharcho is that in Abkhazia lamb is often used. Otherwise, these two soups have many similarities. Take half a kilogram of lamb or mutton on the bone, two liters of water, half a glass of rice, two onions, a few parsley roots, a couple of cloves of garlic, one tomato or a spoon of tomato paste, a tablespoon of adjika, fresh herbs, spices, salt, butter or vegetable oil .
Rinse the meat, put it in a saucepan and pour cool water. Bring to a boil and cook on low heat for about an hour. During cooking, put the whole onion and parsley root into the broth. When the lamb broth is ready, the meat should be removed and cut into small pieces, and the onion and parsley can be discarded. Pour the washed rice into the broth, add the fried onions, finely chopped herbs, chopped garlic, adjika and tomato puree before being cooked. Before serving, soup can be sprinkled with onions and slices of hot pepper, pickled or fresh.
Kharcho with ducklings
There are many ways to diversify the classic recipe. After all, even a duck can make an excellent soup-kharcho. How to cook this version of this dish? In a four-liter pan, take one carcass of a duck, several onions, a couple of cloves of garlic, a tomato, a tablespoon of adjika, half a glass of crushed walnuts, fresh herbs, sunli hops, salt, vegetable oil for frying.
Rinse and cut the carcass in portions, pour cool water and cook until cooked for about an hour and a half, during which prepare the vegetables. Season the prepared broth with spices and walnuts. Vegetable dressing should be prepared as follows. Onions and garlic are cut into small pieces and fried until a strong aroma appears, after which a tomato is added to them. After a couple of minutes, dressing should be mixed with adjika and finely chopped fresh herbs. Put it out a couple of minutes. Ready dressing should be added to an already thickened kharcho with nuts. Let the soup brew a bit and serve.
Vegetarian version of Kharcho
Of course, the right Georgian soup cannot be imagined without meat. But the vegetarian version is quite possible to cook, and it will turn out no less appetizing and fragrant. If the calorie content of kharcho soup on meat (75 kcal per 100 g) does not fit into the diet or you have long excluded beef and other meat products from the menu, your recipe will be as follows.
Take three liters of vegetable broth or water, one hundred and fifty grams of rice, onion, three ripe tomatoes, fifty grams of cilantro, five cloves of garlic, a couple of bay leaves, salt, two teaspoons of sunflower hops, ground hot pepper and peppercorns. Put the washed rice in boiling broth or water, after five minutes add the onion fried in vegetable oil and peeled tomatoes. When the rice is softer, add chopped herbs, chopped garlic and salt. Pour spices in a couple of minutes until cooked. Rice should not be completely cooked, it will reach after turning off the fire.
Lean Kharcho
This option is suitable for both vegetarians and those who fast. Take bell peppers, tomatoes, prunes, rice, adjika, spices and herbs. The ratio of products can be selected to your taste.
Peel and chop the pepper into small pieces, wash the tomatoes and cut them into cubes. Fry the vegetables in a pan. Rinse the prunes well and chop. Put the washed rice in boiling water. Dried fruits should be added to vegetables when they are almost fried, and sprinkled with spices. Put the finished vegetable dressing in the soup, add the herbs and adjika, salt, cook for ten minutes and turn off the heat. Vegetarian Kharcho is ready to be served.