How to cook kharcho soup at home. Kharcho soup: classic recipes for making kharcho at home. Kharcho soup: a simple recipe of beef with tomatoes

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

  1. 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.

  2. 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.

  3. We wash the carrots, remove the peel with a housekeeper, rinse again, cut into small cubes, see the step-by-step photo.

  4. Peel the onion and cut it into small cubes.

  5. Pour vegetable oil into a frying pan, add onions and carrots. Fry the vegetables on high burner power with constant stirring until golden brown.

  6. 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.

  7. Easily remove the peel and cut into cubes.

  8. In the remaining spicy oil from the fried vegetables, simmer the tomatoes with tomato paste.

  9. Wash the round grain rice several times until the liquid becomes lighter.

  10. Remove the husks from the garlic and cut into thin rings.

  11. 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.

  12. 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.

  13. Five minutes before the end of cooking the kharcho, add chopped garlic, sautéed tomatoes and sprinkle with ground black pepper.

  14. 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.

 An invaluable gift of wonderful Georgian cuisine is the popular recipes for kharcho soup, which, thanks to their diversity and rich taste, are familiar to virtually everyone. Traditionally, this is a thick, spicy first course that is prepared from any type of meat (beef, lamb, chicken, pork, fish, etc.), with the addition of rice and seasoned with various spices. An unlimited number of recipes for this masterpiece of Georgian cuisine makes it possible for everyone to find their own version that will give an unforgettable taste pleasure.

Translated from Georgian, the name of this dish means “beef soup,” but this does not mean at all that its preparation from other types of meat is impossible. It is not for nothing that when mentioning this dish it is worth clarifying the area of ​​​​its origin. But it is worth noting that changing the recipe does not in any way spoil the taste of this soup; moreover, it only adds piquancy and introduces new colors, replenishing the taste impressions.

However, it is worth remembering that the main taste feature of the spicy first course is the sour base and the characteristic spicy aroma of the East.

The basis of this soup is a special sour mixture - a Georgian flatbread called tklapi, which is made from unripe berries of the cherry plum tree. Thanks to the technology of its production, tklapi is called cherry plum lavash. The puree prepared from dogwood and plum pulp is placed in special layers and dried in the sun. Also, an excellent alternative to tklapi can be a kind of plum sauce - tkemali with the addition of aromatic garlic and spices. These basic ingredients are the basis of real Georgian food.

This truly deep flavor combination is achieved thanks to some cooking features:

  1. As you know, finding tklapi outside the borders of Georgia is quite a difficult undertaking. But this does not make cooking kharcho soup at home an impossible undertaking. An excellent alternative to replacing the sour component would be adjika, tomato sauce, fresh plum pulp, pomegranate juice, a spoonful of apple cider vinegar, tkemali (store-bought), and lemon when serving.
  2. Hot red pepper will add a spicy kick to the dish. Do not forget that when cutting it can irritate your skin or cause a burn. To avoid this trouble, you should use rubber gloves.
  3. In order to cook delicious kharcho soup, you need to use long white rice, but in no case steamed, you can replace it with round rice. Before using, leave the rice in cold water (about 2 hours), or rinse it thoroughly 5 to 7 times. This will allow you to wash away excess starch, the excessive content of which can simply ruin the taste of the Georgian treat, making it viscous and cloudy.
  4. A simple recipe for kharcho soup includes adding an unlimited amount of greens. You will notice how the specific aroma of cilantro will burst with new notes, adding amazing piquancy to the dish and complementing the bouquet of dill and parsley. A moderate addition of mint leaves will also be completely useful.
  5. The selection of seasonings for this dish is considered purely individual, but the main and mandatory one will be hops-suneli. This seasoning contains dried herbs: dill, mint, red pepper, basil, marjoram, coriander, savory, bay leaf, etc. It is all these components that are responsible for the characteristic oriental spice of the dish. Sometimes in some recipes for true Georgian kharcho the seasoning utskho-suneli is found - this is a specific dried fenugreek that gives the dish a “gentle” nutty aroma.
  6. In some western regions of sunny Georgia, for example, in Megrelia, it is so thick that it seems more like a sauce or a main course than a soup. True Megrelian kharcho is an extremely spicy component of Georgian cuisine. This extreme delicacy is savored by dipping Georgian lavash into it.

Today there are an abundance of different recipes for this delicacy. Each family in Georgia has its own unique secret of preparing this fragrant treat, which they carefully keep, passing on their secret from generation to generation.

Classic recipe for kharcho soup

Ingredients:

  • Meat (beef) – 430 g;
  • Rice (white long grain) – 55 g;
  • Garden fruits (carrots, hot red peppers, onions, garlic);
  • Half a glass of tkemali sauce;
  • A handful of walnuts;
  • Khmeli-suneli;
  • Greens (cilantro, dill, parsley).

Cooking process:

  1. First, start preparing the broth. Immerse a piece of beef in water (about 1.5 liters) and bring to a boil. Just before boiling, do not forget to skim the foam from the broth, this will help make it clear and attractive. Then reduce the heat to low and leave for 2 hours. The water should bubble slightly, but only slightly. After a couple of hours, remove the beef and separate the flesh from it, then cut it into small slices and immerse it back into the bubbling broth.
  2. The next step is to add tkemali to the broth, which is extremely important. Add a few spoons of sauce. At the same time, the use of tkemali is not essential; if this particular sauce is not available, you can replace it with any other sour tomato mass. If you are lucky enough to get hold of a real Georgian layer of tklapi, then you should add it in a piece of about 10 - 12 cm. Cover with a lid until it boils.
  3. After this, cut the vegetables - onions into thin slices, and carrots into strips - and add to the boiling broth. Then toast the walnuts in a heated frying pan. After the appropriate smell appears, use a mortar and mortar to grind it to a fine, homogeneous paste. Add grated garlic there.
  4. After boiling the broth for half an hour over low heat, you can add the prepared rice to it and leave on the fire for another 10 - 12 minutes. The next step is to add the nut-garlic paste. After this maneuver, magical aromas will spread throughout the kitchen, which will be complemented by bay leaves, suneli hops, salt, and black pepper.
  5. If desired, you can add pomegranate juice to enhance the acidity, and crushed hot red pepper is useful for spiciness.
  6. The final touch in preparing this Georgian masterpiece is the addition of chopped herbs. Cook for another 2 - 3 minutes and remove from heat as the beef kharcho soup is ready. Let the delicacy brew for 10 - 15 minutes and start eating, adding Georgian lavash to the dish.

Chicken breast kharcho soup

Modern cooking has changed the recipe of this dish almost beyond recognition. By deviating from the traditional cooking recipe, you can prepare a Slavic interpretation of a Georgian delicacy - this is chicken breast kharcho soup.

For this you will need:

  • Chicken breast;
  • Rice (round or long grain);
  • Tkemali, tomato juice or themed paste;
  • Khmeli-suneli;
  • Vegetables (carrots and onions);
  • Butter;
  • Parsley.

Preparation:

  1. All ingredients listed are based on 2.5 - 3 liters of water. Let's cook the kharcho soup, starting with preparing the broth with chicken breast.
  2. When the broth is almost ready, add thoroughly washed rice, vegetables, tomato juice or tkemali, salt, suneli hops, and pepper.
  3. At the end you should add grated garlic, oil and crushed herbs. And the chicken kharcho soup is ready.

Young lamb kharcho soup

Ingredients:

  • Fatty lamb brisket on the bone (0.7 - 1 kg);
  • Medium grain rice (160 grams);
  • Medium carrots and onions;
  • Ripe tomatoes (5 – 7 pieces);
  • Garlic;
  • Apple cider vinegar (1 – 1.2 tsp);
  • Melted butter;
  • Coriander, black and red pepper;
  • Cilantro, parsley;
  • Salt.

Preparation:

  1. First, peel the membranes off the lamb meat. Then divide the brisket so that each piece has 2 ribs. Heat a frying pan and fry the pieces of meat in melted butter until golden brown.
  2. In a mortar, grind the coriander, allspice and red pepper, and salt until smooth. Sprinkle the meat with apple cider vinegar, place the onion on top, sprinkle with the prepared fragrant gruel and fry over the fire for about 5 minutes.
  3. While the meat is cooking, you need to grind the tomatoes through a sieve and place them in a boiling frying pan, followed by cilantro and water. Cook everything for about an hour. 10 - 12 minutes before readiness, add the prepared rice and finish cooking after 10 minutes. Send the greens and garlic there, leave for 10 - 15 minutes and enjoy your meal.


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Kharcho (from Georgian ხარჩო) is a national dish of Georgia, which is prepared from fatty beef, rice, walnuts and tklapi with the addition of a lot of spices and fresh herbs. The dish has a thick, rich consistency, spicy aroma and a pleasant sour-spicy taste. Let's talk about how to cook real kharcho soup at home.

The kharcho recipe has a centuries-old history. It was invented by the first inhabitants of Georgia, who prepared original and unforgettable national dishes from meat, vegetables, berries, herbs and spices. Interestingly, kharcho was conceived as a thick, rich second course of beef brisket. It was called “dzrohis khortsi kharshot” or translated into Russian “beef for kharcho”. Over time, kharcho turned into soup - the pride of national Georgian cuisine.

The kharcho recipe has a centuries-old history.

The modern recipe for kharcho is far from the original. It is cooked from different types of meat, less spices are added, vegetables are added, barley is used instead of rice, and tkemal pastila tklapi is replaced with tomato paste or concentrated pomegranate sauce. Four ingredients remain unchanged: meat, walnuts, herbs and garlic.

The modern recipe for kharcho is far from the original

The Soviet era left an unforgettable mark on the history of Georgian cuisine. In 1926, Anastas Mikoyan was appointed to the post of People's Commissar of Foreign Trade of the USSR. At that time, the Kremlin canteen regularly served beef kharcho soup, cooked according to an authentic Georgian recipe. Mikoyan did not like beef and, at his request, the cooks prepared for him a personal portion of kharcho in lamb broth. When Stalin found out about this, he was indignant and ordered lamb kharcho to be prepared for all visitors to the dining room. Soon GOST was published, which approved the recipe for lamb kharcho at the state level. Since then, many Russians mistakenly believe that kharcho is lamb soup.

Since Soviet times, many Russians have mistakenly believed that kharcho is lamb soup.

Ingredients for cooking

In classic kharcho they put:

  • beef;
  • walnuts;
  • spices;
  • salt to taste.





  • Greenery. Georgians generously sprinkle their dishes with fresh herbs. They put dill, basil, parsley and kenza in the kharcho.

    Meat and vegetables are poured with water and boiled for 1.5 hours

  • While the meat is cooking, soak the tklapi. To do this, cut a piece of sour pita bread measuring 10x10 cm and divide it into small parts.
  • Pieces of tklapi are placed in a separate cup, poured with boiling water and left until the broth is cooked. During this time, the pita bread should soften and acquire a mushy consistency, as in the next photo. Tklapi can be replaced with tkemali or satsibeli sauces, pomegranate juice or tomato paste. In summer, instead of tklapi, you can use fresh cherry plum (tkemali).

    Tklapi can be replaced with tkemali or satsibeli sauces, pomegranate juice or tomato paste

  • The rice is washed well and soaked in cold water.

    Rice soaked in cold water

  • About 1.5 hours after the start of cooking, remove the broth from the heat, strain and put it back on the stove. The meat is separated from the bones, cut into pieces and placed in the broth. Bones and vegetables are thrown away. Important! Boiled meat is cut across the grain. After finishing the heat treatment, such meat will be juicier and softer than meat cut along the grain.

    Boiled meat is cut across the grain

  • Rice is washed with running water and poured into a saucepan. Softened tklapi is added to the soup.

    After rice, softened plum leaves are added to the soup.

  • While the broth with rice and tklapi is boiling, chop the onion and fry it in a frying pan until golden brown. The prepared onion is placed in a pan with broth. Reference! To prevent your eyes from watering while cutting onions, you should constantly wet the knife with cold water. You can also turn on a nearby fan, which will carry the burning onion molecules away from your eyes.

    Once you have chopped the nuts enough, you can add them to the soup.

  • Saffron, coriander, hot pepper, peppercorns are pounded in a mortar and poured into the soup. Add salt and bay leaf and cook the kharcho over low heat for another 5 minutes.

    Behind the nuts is the line of spices

  • The garlic is passed through a press and sent to the pan. Attention! Experienced housewives chop garlic without a garlic press. They put a plastic bag on the grater and rub the fragrant cloves through it. At the same time, the grater under the bag remains clean.

    Garlic can be passed through a press or grated

  • Fresh cilantro, dill, parsley are finely chopped and added to the soup. Stir the dish, bring to a boil and turn off the heat.

    Greens are added last

  • Cover the soup with a lid and leave for 8-10 minutes before serving. The dish is ready. Bon appetit!

    Ready dish

  • Serving and serving options

    • Kharcho is served in deep clay plates or pots. Boiled meat is placed at the bottom of the plates and aromatic soup is poured over it.

    Kharcho with gomi corn porridge

    • You can serve the kharcho with a bottle of good wine or homemade chacha.

    Kharcho is one of the most popular winter soups. It is a treasure of Georgian national cuisine. It is prepared from fatty beef, rice, sour pita bread, walnuts, onions, herbs and seasonings. It has a spicy aroma, thick consistency and a pleasant pungent taste with sourness.

Step-by-step recipes for preparing kharcho soup at home from beef, pork, chicken, lamb: preparing restaurant kharcho soup at home on the stove and in a slow cooker

2018-01-18 Marina Danko

Grade
recipe

2931

Time
(min)

Portions
(persons)

In 100 grams of the finished dish

3 gr.

4 gr.

Carbohydrates

2 gr.

54 kcal.

Option 1: Classic recipe for homemade lamb kharcho soup

Young, aromatic lamb is the most suitable meat for Caucasian cuisine. This, of course, is not a dogma, and in general a rather controversial statement. Thus, modern recipe collections recommend cooking kharcho mainly with beef broth. In contrast, domestic culinary literature of the twentieth century contains many recipes for lamb kharcho. One of them, the most typical, begins the selection.

Ingredients:

  • young lamb meat - half a kilo;
  • four tablespoons of round grain rice (cereal);
  • 600 gr. fresh tomatoes;
  • garlic;
  • a tablespoon of Tkemali sauce;
  • three onions;
  • a spoonful of khmeli-suneli seasoning;
  • black peppercorns - 4 pcs.;
  • fresh herbs: dill, basil, cilantro;
  • a quarter cup of oil, always unrefined.

Step-by-step recipe for classic lamb kharcho soup at home

We thoroughly wash the lamb in running water, dry it with towels, and cut the meat into rectangular pieces.

Having placed the lamb in a three-liter pan, add two liters of cooled boiled water to it. After adding peppercorns, place on maximum heat. Removing the foam from the surface, quickly bring to a vigorous boil, then cook the meat at a low simmer with the lid closed. Preparing the broth can take from one and a half to two hours, it all depends on the quality of the lamb. It is important that the finished meat can be easily pierced with the tip of a knife.

As soon as you set the broth to boil, you can start preparing the tomatoes. They need to be washed well and poured with boiling water in a deep bowl. After waiting for two minutes, quickly cool the tomatoes by filling them with running tap water. Having cut near the stalk, carefully pull off the skin from the pulp and cut the tomato into small slices.

After peeling the onions, chop them into rings, then into short strips.

Pour a spoonful of oil into the pan and add the onion. Fry over low heat, stirring systematically, until the slices begin to turn golden at the edges.

Add no more than two tablespoons of broth to the pan, and after two minutes add the tomatoes. Cover with a lid, simmer for up to ten minutes and turn off.

Pour rice into the prepared boiling broth, followed by tomato frying into the pan. Be sure to stir to separate the rice grains, otherwise they will stick together. Reduce heat slightly and add some salt.

When the rice is almost ready, add, pressing with a press, five cloves of garlic and finely chopped herbs. After boiling for five minutes, add tkemali to the soup, add suneli hops, then simmer slowly for no more than a minute and remove from heat.

Option 2: Quick recipe for homemade chicken kharcho soup

Poultry dishes are as typical of the Caucasus as those prepared with lamb. Chicken harmonizes better with rice than with pearl barley, and white cereal cooks much faster. Such criteria for choosing products will tell any attentive cook that this is a recipe for quick cooking of kharcho. Cook the famous aromatic chicken soup; children will also enjoy it for lunch.

Ingredients:

  • half a small domestic chicken - approximately 400 grams;
  • 150 gr. white rice;
  • two large onions;
  • 400 gr. potatoes;
  • three full spoons of thick tomato;
  • two tablespoons of pure oil;
  • garlic;
  • tkemali sauce;
  • fresh cilantro (greens);
  • khmeli-suneli - one spoon.

How to quickly prepare aromatic kharcho soup at home from chicken

In a three-liter enamel saucepan, set to cook chicken broth, pour water not to the top, but only to two-thirds of the volume. Be sure to rinse the chicken thoroughly, scraping the skin with a knife. Skim off the foam without waiting for it to boil; at this point, the surface of the broth should be clean, otherwise, with intense bubbling, the foam will fall and cloud the broth. To get a rich, transparent base for the soup, you should cook it under the lid, without letting it boil intensely. Cook chicken broth for 40 minutes.

After peeling the onions, cut them into small slices. Sauté in a frying pan until transparent, adding just a little oil. When the slices begin to barely noticeably brown, add the Tkemali, mix, sprinkle with chopped cilantro, and add the whole tomato.

Salt and pepper the sauteed sauce, heat for up to five minutes, add chopped garlic, stir, keep on fire for another minute and set aside. Remove the chicken from the broth, cool, remove the bones, and cut into short slices. Using the same shape, but slightly smaller in size, chop the peeled potatoes.

Wash and slightly soak the rice in clean water. We put the scum after the potatoes in the boiling broth, after boiling for about five minutes, we put the chicken in there too. After boiling, add sauté, add salt, and add all the spices. Cook the kharcho for about seven minutes, this is enough for chicken soup, add another half spoonful of chopped garlic, stir, after a few seconds of boiling, turn off and leave.

Option 3: Caucasian soup kharcho at home from beef

We prepare kharcho according to all the rules using beef meat and bone broth. It is preferable to use homemade adjika, made from garlic, sweet and bitter pepper. In the absence of one, take a little of the listed products, chop and add to the soup instead of adjika. Store-bought hot sauce contains specific seasonings that may not be to the taste of many; try it first, only then add it to the soup.

Ingredients:

  • veal, steam room - half a kilogram of pulp and 200 grams of chopped bones;
  • two spoons of adjika and one of tomato;
  • half a glass of sorted rice;
  • three onions;
  • five peppercorns, two bay leaves, a spoonful of chopped garlic;
  • greens, any - quantity, to taste;
  • unrefined oil.

How to cook

Inspect the bones, remove any splinters, chop the meat finely, put it in a saucepan, and bring the volume to 2.7 liters with cold water. Skimming off the foam, cook for an hour from the moment it starts boiling. After peeling the onions, chop them as desired, directly into the broth.

We wash the rice in advance; there is no need to soak it; beef, even young beef, does not cook quickly. Place the cereal in the pan and stir. After boiling for no longer than twenty minutes, add salt, add adjika and, after taking a sample, season the kharcho.

Heat the oil, quickly but carefully, since hot splashes cannot be avoided, knead the tomato. When the sauté stops spattering, stir vigorously for a short time and add a ladle of broth. After dissolving the tomato mixture, pour it into the soup.

Add spices to the kharcho, be sure to add bay leaf; it is advisable to remove the large seeds before doing this. Season the soup with garlic, let it simmer slowly for up to five minutes, without removing the lid, turn off the stove. The kharcho should steep for up to half an hour.

Option 4: Cook kharcho soup at home from pork

Pork kharcho cooks much faster than beef soup. It is better to use slightly less spices; the meat has its own wonderful aroma, which should be emphasized, but not overwhelmed.

Ingredients:

  • boneless pork tenderloin from any part - up to 600 grams;
  • a couple of potatoes, and the same number of white onions;
  • one hundred grams of good large rice;
  • head of garlic, small;
  • two tablespoons of tomato and oil, peeled (refined);
  • red pepper and suneli hops - a couple of pinches each;
  • salt and a third of a glass of chopped herbs - a mixture of any types, at your discretion.

Step-by-step recipe for homemade pork kharcho soup

Cut the pork flesh into slices, no thicker than three centimeters. In a four-liter saucepan, or better yet a kettle, bring the volume to three liters with cold water and add another glass to let it boil. Slowly bring to a boil, collecting any floating “noise” along the way, cover with a lid and reduce the heat further. Cook for fifty minutes.

Peel and be sure to thoroughly wash the potatoes and onions, chop the onion randomly, but not large, and dissolve the tubers into “crescents”. Rinse the rice and add to the pan along with the vegetables. Allow twenty minutes to cook at low simmer.

Sauté the tomato, or preferably chopped tomatoes without skins according to the season, in oil until thickened. Transfer to soup, seasoning with all the spices prepared for the soup.

While the kharcho is saturated with new aromas, wash and chop the greens, peel and chop the garlic. This will take no more than five minutes, which is what is required. Season the soup with chopped ingredients, boil for a minute, then leave for another twenty.

Option 5: Hearty homemade kharcho soup with potatoes

The addition of potatoes does not so much change the taste of the kharcho as it enhances the richness of the aromatic soup. Unlike many proposed recipes, this time we use walnuts. They are included in the classic recipe, but nowadays this additive is often neglected.

Ingredients:

  • pork ribs - only seven hundred grams, approximately equal parts pulp and bones;
  • three medium-sized potato tubers;
  • half a glass of finely chopped nuts;
  • rice, large - 2/3 cup;
  • a small carrot and a couple of onions, also medium-sized;
  • a spoon of garlic adjika and two of tomato puree;
  • garlic, chopped - to taste, but no less than a dessert spoon;
  • tkemali, pepper, cilantro, hops-suneli - any seasonings at your discretion.

How to cook

Chop the washed pork, rinse it again, and remove the bone fragments. In a four-liter container - saucepan, cauldron or kettle, fill the meat with water so that there is enough space for the rest of the products. We won’t take the bones out of the finished kharcho, so we take extra dishes. In total, three liters of water are used, and we will not add it.

Immediately after rapid boiling, salt the water and, of course, skim off the foam. Cook, covering tightly with a lid, until the pork begins to gradually separate from the bones. Then we catch it, cut it to the ribs and put everything back.

Peel and chop the potatoes into a centimeter cube, add them after the pork, and slightly increase the heat. Wash the rice, put it in the pan, and after boiling, lower the heat to the lowest setting.

We peel and chop the onion, we do the same with the carrots, but you can also grate them through a coarse grater. Mix the vegetables, put them in a frying pan in hot oil, stir and sauté until half cooked. Add nut crumbs and grated (crushed) garlic.

Add tomato and adjika to the fry, stir, season with spices. After warming up a little, transfer it to the kharcho, let it boil for up to ten minutes, then let it sit for half an hour under the lid.

Option 6: Quick kharcho soup at home in a slow cooker

If in all previous descriptions we tried to choose soups that are closest to the classics, then the next kharcho is an absolutely arbitrary recipe “based on” a Georgian dish. We even take not just any vessel for its preparation, but the most modern one - a multicooker.

Ingredients:

  • half a kilo of beef;
  • vegetables, two of each type: carrots, tomatoes, onions, sweet peppers;
  • three potatoes;
  • a full multi-cup of rice;
  • oil, lean;
  • garlic, salt, hot spices, herbs and bay leaf.

Step by step recipe

Peel potatoes, peppers, carrots and onions (pepper seeds removed). Grate the carrots and chop the remaining vegetables finely. Wash and dry the meat, cut the vegetables into larger pieces.

Start the multicooker for 40 minutes in baking mode. Heat the oil and fry the meat in it for half the selected time. Add the onions first, then, at five-minute intervals, add and stir: first the carrots, then the peppers and lastly the tomatoes.

For the last 5 minutes we simmer all the vegetables along with the meat, then add the washed rice and add the potatoes. Stir, add salt, add spices and pepper, add water to the 3-liter mark. We start the stewing mode for exactly one and a half hours, close the lid tightly.

Closer to the stop of the timer, we peel and chop the garlic, chop the greens, add to the kharcho, after the end of the program, add the bay leaf there, you can add a little more salt if necessary. Keep with the heating on for up to half an hour.

Option 7: Homemade beef kharcho soup with prunes

Prunes are another undeservedly ignored component of real Caucasian kharcho. Lightly smoked berries add, even to soup cooked in a slow cooker, the color and aroma of real kharcho.

Ingredients:

  • beef tenderloin - half a kilogram;
  • a small head of garlic;
  • two large onions;
  • one hundred grams of juicy prunes;
  • a third of a glass of rice;
  • a glass of 25 percent tomato paste;
  • adjika, ground pepper and suneli hops - to taste.

How to cook

Wash the beef and pat dry with a towel, cut into smaller pieces into 3-centimeter cubes, place in a two-liter pan, pour in water four centimeters short of the edge. Let it boil over high heat, collect the foam, reduce the boil to low, and cook under the lid for at least an hour and a quarter.

Fry the onion cut into small squares in oil, put the tomato in the sauté pan and fry for another five minutes, making sure to stir from time to time.

Add prunes cut into short strips to the almost finished meat and cook for a quarter of an hour. If the dried fruits are smoked or simply very dry, be sure to soak them in warm water before slicing.

Pour washed, sorted rice into the kharcho. When it has boiled sufficiently (after about 15 minutes), season the soup with finely chopped garlic, add roast, spices, and herbs if desired.

After boiling for about five minutes, taste for salt, you can add a little adjika and garlic of your choice.

Option 8: Homemade kharcho soup with potatoes

A wonderful soup that fits perfectly into the canons of cooking kharcho, if, of course, you sacrifice some little things. A quick recipe made from canned meat - perfect for camping or country cooking.

Ingredients:

  • stew (any) - 400 gram jar;
  • 80 grams of rice;
  • onion, potato and carrot - one piece each;
  • large tomato;
  • set of spices “For kharcho”;
  • salt, dill, garlic, sugar - a little bit of everything.

Step by step recipe

Peel the onion and dissolve it into half rings, pour a spoonful of any oil into the pot, heat it up a little and sauté the onion in it. Grate the peeled carrots there, add the fat from the stew, and heat together for about four minutes.

Pour a glass of boiling water into the pot, add potatoes, peeled and cut into thin cubes. Simmer for ten minutes and add the whole stew with gravy, stir. Time a quarter of an hour and at the end of it, put the tomato cut into thin slices into the pot. Sprinkle with seasoning, chopped dill and garlic, pour in one and a half liters of boiling water.

While completing the previous steps, cook the rice. With a large amount of water, at least two liters, boiling moderately, boil the cereal for up to 15 minutes. Try it - if the grains of rice are still tight, but can already be bitten without effort, then the rice is ready. Give it a quick rinse with cold water and shake off any excess moisture. Place the rice in the pan with the kharcho at the end of the second step. Stir, taste for salt, let it boil and cook for no longer than a minute.

It’s quite easy to adapt this recipe for preparing quick kharcho soup at home in a slow cooker. All the steps remain the same, perhaps the only thing that needs to be changed is to boil the rice before preparing the kharcho, and not at the same time as it.

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, I haven’t bothered to cook any kharcho to this day! 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

  1. Use khmeli-suneli for kharcho soup instead of the indicated spices if you are confident in the quality of the product.
  2. 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.
  3. Which rice is better? I take the round Krasnodar one. Take any short rice that cooks well, but does not turn into porridge.
  4. If all acidic ingredients are missing, use good quality tomato paste (3-4 tablespoons).
  5. 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).
  6. Should I add walnuts? Aunt Nino put in either rice or nuts. I like the rice option better.
  7. 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.