Simple soup; Kharcho

Simple soup “Kharcho”

Almost all of us are familiar with the Georgian soup “Kharcho”, but not everyone decides to make it. But in vain, because there are affordable options that you can create any day! For example, this is one of them.

Manufacturing Description:

Ingredients:

• Rice – 150 G
• Chicken legs – 2 pieces
• Carrots – 1 piece
• Onions – 1 piece
• Tomato paste - 3 tbsp. spoons
• “Tkemali” sauce – 3 tbsp. spoons
• Vegetable oil - 4 tbsp. spoons
• Garlic – 3 cloves
• Khmeli-suneli - 1 pinch
• Salt - 3 Pinches
• Water – 3 Liters
• Greens, sprig - 2-3 pieces

Number of servings: 8

How to cook “Simple soup “Kharcho””

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if instead of tkemali-ch/drain?

Simple borscht: Take chicken, no need for beef or pork, take onion, no need for cabbage, add tomato, no need for ripe tomatoes, add potatoes, no need for red beets, boil for 10 minutes. and you're done!

garlic and cilantro are added at the end of cooking

Creator, do you at least completely understand what the word “kharcho” means? The mess that you get from this recipe has nothing to do with kharcho.

Kharcho soup with chicken

Georgian cuisine is so original in its taste that it has become popular all over the world. But a real housewife will make her own adjustments to any of the recipes, following her tastes. So, kharcho soup (a common recipe, you must admit!) has long been prepared with chicken, but this does not make the dish lose its appeal.

A few words about the features of kharcho

If you think about the translation of the name of the dish, it sounds like “beef soup.” Which says that traditional kharcho soup is prepared specifically from cattle meat (although almost everyone believes that it is from lamb). The dish is also filling due to the rice it contains.

What makes this soup special is the ability of Georgian chefs to choose the right spices. After all, kharcho should turn out not spicy, but pleasantly spicy. Without this condition, ordinary rice soup seasoned with tomato will be cooked. Although aromatic pepper will give off a smell, it is better to rely on herbs: basil, coriander, saffron, cilantro, cumin. Don't forget also about bay leaf, cardamom and garlic.

With all this, you don’t have to worry too much about collecting herbs, but buy a ready-made mixture in the store, selected specifically for seasoning kharcho. Or opt for the classic “khmeli-suneli”. Then even chicken will not prevent the soup from becoming a Georgian dish.

Kharcho with chicken broth

Almost everyone prefers chicken broths specifically due to their easy digestibility. So in this case, chicken kharcho can be safely classified as a dietary dish.

If you decide to cook kharcho with chicken, you will need our traditional step-by-step recipe with photos.

So, first you should stock up on all the necessary components in advance

Below is a list of ingredients that are useful for making kharcho soup based on chicken broth. This will be enough to cook 3 liters of a fragrant, savory dish for lunch.

• Chicken – 0.5 kg
• Rice - 1.5 cups
• Onions – 1 pc.
• Garlic – 1 head
• Tomato paste – 2 – 3 tbsp.
• Salt, spices to taste

To make kharcho, some people also use carrots, fresh tomatoes and potatoes, but this is at the discretion of the housewife.

Manufacturing process

First you need to properly defrost and wash the chicken, and cook broth from it. Here you need to take into account this point - if you need to get a rich broth, then the bird is dipped into boiling water. By filling it with cool water and putting it on fire, you will get the weakest broth, but the chicken will cook faster and become softer.

When the meat is ready, it is removed from the pan, cooled and cut into portions. Then they proceed according to the following method.

The finished broth should be strained through 2 layers of gauze - this will make it transparent.

If you plan to add potatoes to the soup, now is the time to put them in the pan. Tubers should be no more than 1/3 of the total size of the dish. You can cut it into small cubes or into longitudinal strips (as you like).

After boiling the potatoes until half cooked, add washed rice to the broth. It is better to take cereals that are not steamed or crushed, but choose a starchy variety.

At the same time, frying is done in vegetable oil - from chopped onions and tomato paste. You can also fry grated carrots, as well as slices of the freshest tomato (they will give the kharcho the necessary sourness). Beforehand, remove the skin from the tomato by first dousing the vegetable with boiling water, then with a stream of cool water.

Before removing the roast from the heat, add garlic. If the goal is to create the most spicy soup, then the cloves should be crushed (preferably crushed). Leaving them whole gives the most intense aroma. But then, when serving the soup, you need to watch closely so that the garlic cloves do not fall into the plate.

When the rice is ready (it needs about 7 minutes, not more), the soup is salted and the frying is added, and spices are also added.

Now all that’s left is to turn off the heat and let the kharcho brew for a couple of minutes. When serving, put chicken meat into each serving plate, add a little butter and crush with the freshest herbs.

But you can put all this addition on the dinner table so that anyone can use these ingredients according to their own taste. Maybe someone would like to add a spoonful of sour cream to the kharcho.

Nice options

To literally make kharcho soup with chicken look like a Georgian dish, you should make some additions to the recipe described a little higher.

• You can add a pleasant sourness if you mix tomato paste with Tkemali sauce, or add a little drain of this variety to the soup (as is done when making real kharcho).
• If someone prefers pomegranate juice, then you should not add it to the frying, pouring a little directly into the pan at the end of cooking.
• In Georgia, spices are combined with salt in advance and only later the mixture is added to the soup. And the bay leaf is placed in the pan at the beginning of cooking, when the broth is still being cooked (the bay leaf should be removed later).
• You don’t have to add grated carrots to the roast, but put them in the broth before removing the chicken from it.
• If someone doesn’t like cilantro, it can be replaced with the most common spice - tarragon or parsley.
• A real recipe for chicken kharcho soup is inconceivable without walnuts. They pair exceptionally well with chicken dishes. It is recommended to fry the nuts in advance (but do not overcook them). If you chop the kernels before adding them to the soup along with spices, the nuts will give the dish an unusual smell.

Well, in order to completely correspond to the state cuisine of Georgians, instead of bread, real lavash should be served at the table.

Simple kharcho - it's hot in the stomach

The Georgian dish kharcho has obviously been around for a long time and has also long been loved by the inhabitants of our country. Now let’s present an ordinary recipe for kharcho, which can be prepared independently from ordinary goods.

By the way, according to all the rules, kharcho is prepared only from beef on the bone with the obligatory addition of tklapi - dried plum puree. It is unlikely to get tklapi in Russia now, unless someone makes it themselves at home especially for kharcho. A suitable candidate is tkemali, a plum sauce that can be found in large supermarkets.

In addition to beef and tkemali, finely chopped walnuts are certainly added to kharcho. So that the recipe is truly ordinary and you don’t have to go to a distant supermarket for tkemali, we will offer you kharcho with a lighter composition.

Ingredients

To make the recipe, you will need the following products:

• Short grain rice – 100 g.

• Onions – 1 pc.

• Garlic – 3 cloves.

• Hot pepper – to taste.

• Khmeli-suneli - to taste.

• Tomato paste – 50 g.

• Greens (dill, parsley) – to taste.

• Vegetable oil – 20 g.

Let us clarify that if there is no butcher shop with the freshest beef in your immediate environment, pork will also do, but it is also better on the bone. Another good recipe option with pork ribs. The smell will be good!

If you don’t have tomato paste at home, don’t run headlong to the store, only tomatoes are completely suitable, and if you don’t have any tomatoes, then the last option is ketchup, but it’s better without seasoning, otherwise the taste won’t be the same.

There are no carrots in the classic recipe, so you can skip them. This ingredient is optional.

Number of servings – 5.

Production time – 40 minutes (+ meat cooking time 2-3 hours).

Accessories

Cooking soup will be easy if you prepare the usual set of utensils in advance:

A small list of cooking utensils has been identified, and you are ready to start making soup.

Recipe

1. Wash the meat thoroughly and place in a saucepan. After boiling, remove any foam that appears. Cook the meat until cooked for about 3 hours, depending on the size of the piece.

2. Cool the cooked meat slightly and cut it into small pieces.

3. Place the washed rice in the pan.

4. First fry the onion in a frying pan with oil until golden brown. Remove the skins from the tomatoes, pour boiling water over them, chop them finely and add to the onions. If you do add carrots, peel them and grate them on a large grater. Next, add tomato paste and crushed or finely chopped garlic.

5. If you are using hot pepper, add it to the vegetable mixture; if you are using pepper as a seasoning, add it a little later.

6. The vegetables are ready, and feel free to add them to the pan with the meat and rice.

7. Once the rice is cooked, and this depends on the rice itself (taste it), add seasonings and herbs.

8. Close the lid, boil for another 5 minutes, no more, and turn off. The kharcho will brew and after 15 minutes you can serve the dish on the dinner table.

Following the usual recipe for kharcho, you should prepare flat cakes for serving, but you can also offer ordinary bread. By the way, it is incorrect to say kharcho soup; it is as erroneous as saying cabbage soup or borscht soup. Kharcho is the same personal name for the dish.

Notes

Some recipes advise putting potatoes in the soup, but this recipe will seriously break tradition. If it seems to you that without potatoes the kharcho will not be satisfying - add it, it will be your personal ingredient.

In terms of thickness, kharcho should be thicker than ordinary soup, and not have the thickness of porridge, so it’s important not to overdo it with rice.

Kharcho is a spicy dish, but if you have gastritis, an ulcer or other stomach problems, make the soup without adding hot seasonings - you will invent a new recipe.

Now you understand how to prepare a lighter version of kharcho, without unique products that cannot always be found in a hypermarket near your home. The fragrant and rich dish will certainly receive praise from your household and a desire to see this Georgian soup on the table more often.

Kharcho soup: the usual recipe and manufacturing secrets

Food has long been transformed from a natural need into a full-fledged part of life. For almost everyone, it is a source of pleasure and provides an opportunity to realize creative possibilities. Cooking is an art, just like painting or cross-stitching. Lovers of gastronomic delights tirelessly invent something new or improve what they have already prepared more than once. Among all this abundance, kharcho soup deserves special attention. A simple recipe, affordable products, a little skill and knowledge of a few secrets allows you to create a real culinary masterpiece in the kitchen in almost one and a half to two hours. There are many variations of this dish, but simple production methods are more popular. If you are not skilled in culinary skills, you should start making soup with them.

Personality of soup kharcho

Kharcho is a Georgian dish. Like all the cuisine of this country, it is spicy, spicy and quite filling. If you want to prepare real, traditional kharcho soup, you will have to supplement the usual recipe with “complex” spices. In fact, there is nothing complicated about them, there are just a lot of them and it will be useful to strictly follow the proportions. Gourmets are convinced that the taste of the finished dish depends on this in almost everything.

At first it was cooked only with beef, but now there are options for the soup with chicken or pork. Duck and goose meat, turkey, and rabbit meat are not suitable for kharcho. The word “kharcho” itself is translated from Georgian as “beef soup”.

This is the first dish and despite the fact that among its ingredients there is meat, the soup can be called practically dietary. If you cook it with beef or veal, then 100 grams of the finished product will contain about 75 kcal. In other words, an average serving of kharcho (approximately 300 grams) will be a little more than 200 Kcal. It is clear that spices and spices (of which there are many) speed up metabolism and promote fat burning, so such food not only will not spoil your figure, but will also help you maintain slimness. Chicken kharcho soup, prepared according to a traditional recipe, has a nutritional value of about 100 Kcal per 100 grams; if you take pork as a base, the calorie content will increase, reaching 150 Kcal. There is also a version of lamb kharcho, but it has a specific taste (due to the characteristics of the meat), which not many people like. In addition, this soup will be fattier than pork: a 100-gram serving contains 210 kcal.

To make the food the least fatty, it is best to use ribs (try to choose lean ones). Instead of corn or sunflower oil, you should use olive oil for frying vegetables - it is not as nutritious and the most healthy.

Secrets of making soup

If you decide to make kharcho soup, the usual recipe will only be its basis. To create a real culinary masterpiece of Georgian cuisine, it is useful to arm yourself with several secrets:

Kislinka

To give the soup a specific, sour taste, cherry plum pita bread, called tklapi, is used. It is a flat, oval cake made from dried cherry plum and dogwood puree. Since getting such a curiosity can be problematic, it can be replaced with the freshest cherry plum or plum puree, tomato pulp (preferably sour), or adjika. Some people use lemon juice instead of tklapi, but only freshly squeezed juice is used, without adding sugar. A store-bought, packaged product is not suitable for kharcho.

Spices

If you deprive this soup of spices, you will end up with a pale copy of an unusual Georgian dish. The key to a spicy, special taste is hot pepper. At the same time, it is better to use the freshest one, not dried, crushed into powder. True, it can cause skin irritation, and if it gets into wounds, cracks or cuts, it will cause a powerful burning sensation, so you should cut it with gloves and not with bare hands.

The soup should contain bay leaf, marjoram, basil, dill and the rest. If searching for and mixing spices doesn’t appeal to you, you can simply purchase the Khmeli-Suneli seasoning.

The traditional recipe involves adding (after production) cilantro and mint. But since not many people like their taste and smell, you shouldn’t put greens in a pan; it’s better to offer them in portions when the food is poured onto plates.

Rice

Rice is an essential component of this Georgian soup. It is best to take long-grain, unprocessed. Before use, it must be soaked in cool water for at least 2 hours. Otherwise, the soup will turn out cloudy, with a floury taste and a not particularly pleasant smell.

Kharcho soup: regular recipe

If this is your first time making kharcho, prepare to spend about 2.5 hours. For 2 servings of the first course the following products are required:

• 400 g beef
• 100 g tkemali
• 50 grams of rice
• 0.5 cups shelled walnuts
• 2 huge onions
• 1 carrot
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1 hot pepper
• 1 pinch of salt, herbs and spices to taste

It's great to use meat on the bone. The bone is removed after the broth is ready. In this case, the liquid will be the most satisfying and rich. The meat is washed, filled with 1.5 liters of cool water and put on fire. As soon as the water boils, the heat must be reduced to a minimum so that the beef simmers for about 2 hours. Then the bone is removed, and the meat is chopped, after which it is returned to the broth, and rice is immediately poured in with this. While everything is cooking, the vegetables are washed and cut into strips. Add carrots to the prepared broth (boiled over low heat as before), add onions and garlic after 10 minutes, then tkemali. Stir everything thoroughly and let it boil for 5-7 minutes. The nuts are fried in a frying pan (without oil), then added to the soup. If the finished dish lacks acid, add tomato puree or pomegranate juice.

Alternatively, you can fry the onions and carrots ahead of time, but this will increase the nutritional value of the soup and slightly change its taste.

Kharcho recipe for a slow cooker

If you want to quickly prepare kharcho soup, a regular slow cooker recipe will be the best solution. In addition, cooking, in this case, will take a little less time. For this version of the first course you will need:

• 0.5 kg beef
• 2 onions
• 2 carrots
• 2 bell peppers
• 2 tomatoes
• 1 multi cup rice
• 3 potatoes
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 pinch of salt, spices and herbs to taste

The meat is washed and cut into small pieces (the bones are removed immediately), the vegetables are washed and then chopped into cubes or strips. Carrots should be grated on a large grater. Then the meat is placed in the multicooker bowl, a little vegetable oil is added (preferably olive oil) and the “Baking” mode is set for 20 minutes. It is necessary that the meat is slightly fried. Then, at intervals of 5 minutes, you need to add vegetables in this order:

1. Onion
2. Carrot
3. Pepper
4. Tomatoes

Everything is stewed for another 20 minutes, then washed rice and potatoes are added to the multicooker, water is poured to the top, salt, pepper and other spices are added. Be sure to add a couple of bay leaves to the dish you are preparing. Then the “Stew” mode is set and the soup is cooked for approximately 1.5 hours. In the finished (still hot) dish, you need to add crushed or grated garlic in a garlic press and mix everything thoroughly.

For anyone who decides to cook kharcho soup, the usual recipe will only serve as the basis for creating the dish. By adding different ingredients to the recipe, you can change the taste and smell of food. Any housewife, having tried several manufacturing methods, will be able to find a better option.