How long to cook kharcho soup?

The general principle of cooking kharcho: cut 500 grams of beef into pieces and put in a saucepan. Pour cold water over the meat, put the pan on high heat and bring to a boil, then cook over medium heat for 30 minutes, removing the foam. Fry the onion for 5-7 minutes, add the peeled tomatoes to it, simmer under the lid for 10 minutes. Add frying, washed rice, spices to the broth and cook for 20 minutes. Add herbs and garlic 5 minutes before cooking.

How easy it is to cook kharcho soup

Products

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 prongs

Hops-suneli – 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 the onion and chop finely.

4. Heat the frying pan, put the onion, fry it for 5 minutes.

5. Pour boiling water over the tomatoes, peel and chop finely; add the tomatoes to the onion for 10 minutes, covered with a lid.

6. Put the tomatoes in the broth, add the well washed rice, add the spices and cook for 20 minutes.

7. Peel and chop the garlic.

8. Wash and cut the greens.

9. Add garlic and herbs to kharcho soup, cook for another 5 minutes, leave for 1 hour.

About the classic harcho

1. Defrost beef, if frozen, wash and place in a saucepan.

2. Pour 2 liters of water over the beef, season with 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 kharcho pot with boiling broth.

4. Cut the onions into half rings along the onion.

5. Cut the carrots into 1 centimeter side cubes or into half centimeter thick circles.

6. Put the tkemali, carrots and onions in the broth.

7. Cook the soup for half an hour.

8. Prepare the walnut dressing: put the walnut kernels in a preheated dry frying pan and fry for 5 minutes over medium heat with constant stirring. Then grind the nuts (you can use a garlic press), add chopped garlic to them.

9. Put rice in kharcho, after 10 minutes – dressing with walnuts.

10. Cook the kharcho for another 15 minutes.

11. Add 1 tablespoon of hops-suneli, put 1 bay leaf, add salt and pepper the soup, mix.

12. Cover the soup with a lid and hold for 10 minutes.

Serve soup with lavash or other Georgian bread.

Delicious facts

What rice, How long and when to add to kharcho

Standard proportions are 1 tablespoons of rice per 1,5 liter of a saucepan. Round-grain rice is used for real kharcho soup; it must be added to the soup 25 minutes before the end of cooking the soup.

Kharcho can be too thick mainly due to the large amount of rice. If this happens, you should take a slotted spoon and scoop out the excess rice. It can be put into meatballs or meatballs. Another option would be to boil more broth in a separate saucepan and put some of the grounds in it. Then the soup can be frozen. But it is not recommended to leave too thick kharcho soup – 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 seeds, hot peppers, saffron, barberry;

– walnuts crushed with a mortar (50 grams 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 plum or tklapi (3 tablespoons) – cherry plum marshmallow. As a last resort, add chopped prunes (8-10 pieces).

– parsley (herbs and root), marjoram, basil, mint, coriander and / or cilantro are added from greens 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 add a spicy bit of kharcho.

What else can be added

– for flavor when cooking meat, it is recommended to add 2-3 onion heads to the soup, and after the meat is cooked, remove the onion 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 high-calorie.

– although potatoes are not put into real kharcho soup, for greater satiety, you can add a couple of pieces. From this, the soup will cease to correspond to traditions, but it will become very nutritious. Add the diced potatoes 20 minutes before the end of the soup.

– if the kharcho is too sour, you can add salt, pepper, herbs or sugar.

– the classic version of serving kharcho soup – with a lot of lavash or other Georgian bread.

About the consistency of kharcho

– Onions in classic kharcho are cut along the growth of the onion to keep its shape and prevent it from turning into porridge during cooking.

– Too spicy kharcho soup can be diluted with boiled water or broth, or a large portion of sour cream, bread and drinks can be provided for each serving of kharcho. It will be more time consuming to drain the rice, select it and return 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 cooked with beef meat (ideally, with beef brisket on the bone or on the marrow), it is allowed to use both lamb and 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.

– The cost of products for cooking classic kharcho soup is from 400 rubles, for cooking simple kharcho soup – 300 rubles. (on average in Moscow for July 2019).

Check out the recipes for all the soups and the cooking times!