Kharcho soup is a classic of Caucasian cuisine. So beloved by the Soviet public catering, it is in fact extremely tasty and healthy.
Real kharcho, like pilaf or kebab, is certainly made from lamb.
Only this meat, according to Caucasians, can saturate the broth of spicy mountain soup with the necessary aroma and taste.
Classic lamb kharcho - general principles of preparation
• Like any soup, kharcho will turn out to be more rich if you take a piece of meat with bone to prepare the broth. It is not pulp that should be selected, but the scapula or ribs.
• There is an obligatory subtlety in the preparation of mutton broth - the meat is dipped only in boiling water. In the future, it is prepared, as well as from any other meat: on low heat, not allowing to boil very much and always with the lid closed.
• Lamb is cooked on the bones for at least two hours, when using the pulp it will take an hour and a half.
• Classic kharcho is cooked with pearl barley, but soups with rice are sometimes preferable, in particular if you cook for children. Rice is chosen ordinary, round-grain, although often the so-called rice section - ground rice is also put in the kharcho.
"Classic" mutton spicy kharcho soup with nuts
Ingredients:
• ribs of a young lamb - 1.2 kg;
• a glass of long grain rice;
• three large onions;
• a spoonful of very sharp adjika;
• two large tomatoes;
• two spoons of hops-suneli;
• peppercorns;
• a handful of walnuts;
• a pair of bay leaves;
• a spoon of tomato paste;
• ground paprika - an incomplete teaspoon;
• dried basil;
• large head of garlic;
• refined oil - 2 tbsp. l .;
• saffron;
• fresh cilantro.
Cooking method:
1. Fill a large pot with water, set to maximum heating temperature. Once it boils, lower the lamb, peppercorns and onion. Wash the meat thoroughly beforehand; no need to cut it.
2. Bring the broth to a boil, then reduce the heat and let cook under the lid for two hours. In the process of boiling, be sure to remove all foam. After about an hour from boiling, add a spoonful of salt, but do not salt in the beginning, otherwise the lamb will be stiff.
3. When the broth is cooked, the meat needs to be laid out. To remove small fragments of bones, onions and peppers, strain the broth with a sieve and pour into the same pan. Do not forget to wash it, "plaque" always accumulates on the walls when cooking meat.
4. On medium heat, bring the broth to a boil, pour the rice washed in advance. Add a spoonful of suneli hops and leave to cook, setting medium heat.
5. Seed all the meat. Beat the mashed tomatoes with a blender. Add the remaining Suneli hops, basil and saffron, mix. If there is no blender, peel the tomato and simply chop the pulp on a grater.
6. Onion cut into half rings, and if the head is large, then quarters of rings. In oil, fry the onion strips until golden. Add paprika and chopped tomatoes. Put a spoonful of pasta, adjika and crushed nuts. Stir and leave to simmer under the lid for six minutes.
7. Transfer the prepared roasting to the broth to the finished rice. Bringing to a boil, boil at a minimum temperature for about five minutes. At the end, put the crushed garlic and mashed greens, stir the soup well, turn off the stove.
Lamb Kharcho: a classic recipe with potatoes
Ingredients:
• a half-kilogram piece of lamb with bones;
• round grain rice - 4 tbsp. l .;
• three large onions;
• garlic;
• a pound of potatoes;
• three tablespoons of Tkemali sauce;
• 400 gr. fresh tomato;
• greens: parsley, cilantro and dill - in small bunches;
• allspice and black pepper;
• dried basil - a few pinches.
Cooking method:
1. Rinse the lamb. Strip from the films and the remnants of tendons, cut into medium-sized pieces of oblong shape.
2. Boil 2.5 L quickly. water and dip lamb into it. Before boiling again, carefully remove the foam. As soon as the boiling begins, slightly reduce the heat and cook the broth for one and a half hours.
3. Put the lamb in a bowl, and dip the diced potatoes into the broth. Immediately add the washed rice, stir and let cook on low heat.
4. Fry half the onion rings until transparent in vegetable oil. Put pieces of boiled meat to it, season with Tkemali sauce. Add grated tomatoes, mix and simmer for 20 minutes. Stir periodically and make sure that the fry does not burn.
5. When rice and potatoes are ready, put the tomato roast in the broth. Pour all the spices into the kharcho, salt to your taste. After boiling over low heat for about a quarter of an hour, add finely chopped garlic and fresh herbs to the kharcho. Darken with the lid closed for about three minutes and remove from the stove.
Classic lamb kharcho with prunes
Ingredients:
• lamb brisket - 400 gr.;
• 50 gr. dry, large rice;
• seasoning hops suneli;
• two onions;
• a large head of garlic;
• pitted prunes - 100 g .;
• one third of a spoonful of ground pepper, red and black;
• 180 gr. spicy tomato;
• fresh herbs;
• two teaspoons of acute adjika, with suneli hop.
Cooking method:
1. Cut the brisket washed with water and dip in boiling water. Wait until the contents of the pan begin to boil again. Without waiting for intense drilling, remove all foam. Cook the lamb, lowering the heat to medium.
2. Cut the washed prunes into thin strips and lower it into the broth, after an hour, from the moment of boiling.
3. After boiling for twenty minutes, add rice and chopped garlic. Rinse cereals with cold water. Cook until rice is soft.
4. While the rice groats are boiling, pour two tablespoons of oil into the pan and heat it well over low heat. Then put the onion half rings, and when they are well browned, add the tomato and adjika. Stir frying for seven minutes, then transfer to a pan of cooked rice.
5. Season the hops-suneli, adjust the taste of kharcho with salt. Add greens, set aside and let it brew for about half an hour.
Lamb kharcho a classic Georgian plum recipe
Ingredients:
• lamb on the bone - 400 gr.;
• four onion heads, medium;
• 100 gr. round grain rice;
• five large plums;
• five small cloves of garlic;
• 100 gr. walnuts;
• a tablespoon of flour;
• some fresh cilantro;
• three tablespoons of lean, aromatic oil;
• spices - to taste;
• one third tsp hot pepper, ground.
Cooking method:
1. Rinse the lamb with running water. Immediately chop the meat in portions and pour boiling water over it. At maximum heat, removing the foam, bring to the boil. Then set the heat so that it boils in the pan, but not intensely. Cook the meat for an hour and a half.
2. Chop the onion finely and warm in oil until soft. Add flour, continue cooking, stirring continuously, until golden blush.
3. Make plum sauce. Rinse the fruits, dip in cold water and, placing on a small fire, boil until soft. Fold the plums onto a sieve and grind, choosing skins and pits.
4. Transfer the cooked plum puree into a pan, sell garlic to it, mix. Warming the sauce over low heat, and regularly stirring at the same time, bring to a thickening.
5. Remove the meat from the prepared broth and strain it into a clean pan. Place the pieces of lamb back in the pan and place it on the fire again. When it boils, put the cereal. Add the nuts blended by the blender, put in the soup, the onion fried with flour and plum sauce. Cook, not boiling, until rice is cooked.
6. Put the chopped greens into the pan, and boil the soup for another five minutes.
Recipe for classic mutton kharcho soup, for a slow cooker
Ingredients:
• lamb brisket - about 700 grams;
• half a glass of rice;
• two spoons of unsalted, thick tomato;
• half a head of garlic;
• hops-suneli - a couple of spoons, to taste;
• hot pepper marinade (if any);
• three onions - two for roasting and one for broth.
Cooking method:
1. Having programmed the quenching mode, and indicating the execution time of two hours on the timer, pour water and lower the onion head into it with the meat.
2. Meanwhile, on a stove in a pan, fry two chopped onions. Put tomato paste at the very end.
3. At the stop of the program, remove the mutton, remove the meat from the seeds, cut, if necessary, and return it to the broth. Add onion fried with tomato, then washed rice. Stir and put greens.
4. Start the quenching mode, wait five minutes, and add the hops-suneli to the dish. Now you need to close the lid, and cook the kharcho in the same mode for another hour.
5. Put chopped garlic in the soup, add, remove the sample. To taste, add the hot pepper marinade and stand for half an hour in the heating mode.
Classic lamb kharcho soup with tomato
Ingredients:
• a pound of lamb trimmings;
• medium carrots;
• large onion;
• three pods of sweet pepper;
• a glass of large non-steamed rice;
• three tablespoons of tomato;
• garlic;
• fresh dill - required, parsley leaf and young cilantro - optional.
Cooking method:
1. Having prepared the slow cooker for the frying mode, generously grease the bowl with oil and fold it into pieces, cut into pieces of lamb. Fry meat for a quarter of an hour.
2. Cut the pepper into strips, and the carrots, after having washed and cleaned, we rub into large chips. Add vegetables to the meat as soon as the first stage is completed.
3. We set the same operating mode for another ten minutes and half of this time we fry the vegetables. During this time, we cut the onion into quarters of the rings and, together with the tomato, put in the slow cooker. Stirring occasionally, wait until the program ends.
4. We lay washed rice for the rest of the products, add the required amount of boiling water. We start the processor for an hour and a half, having programmed "Extinguishing".
5. In the finished kharcho we put peeled and mashed garlic, warm in a special mode for about 15 minutes. At the same time we put cilantro, basil or other herbs with a sharp taste.
Classic lamb kharcho soup - cooking tips and tricks
• Garlic is recommended to be added to kharcho, immediately at the end of cooking. So it will retain a maximum of aroma, which is usually lost during prolonged heat treatment.
• The broth is excellent in a pressure cooker, although there is still a wonderful option - to simmer it in the oven using a clay pot.
• Observe exactly the recommended rice proportions so that instead of soup you don’t accidentally make porridge. For the same purposes, carefully monitor the croup after laying in the broth, it should not boil.
• If there is no blender, nuts can be chopped with a regular mashed potato masher, and chopped kernels will do.
