Soup kharcho
Are you interested in Caucasian cuisine? Try to cook Georgian beef kharcho according to our family recipe with detailed photos and video descriptions.
1 hour 30 minutes
245 kcal
5/5 (8)
If you have just begun your acquaintance with the classic cuisines of the world, I suggest you turn your attention to the traditional Georgian beef kharcho soup. Why this particular dish? The fact is that it is not without reason that kharcho is a source of national pride
Georgia – you can literally fall in love with this soup “from the first spoon”. Very aromatic, rich and satisfying kharcho with an almost imperceptible taste of rice has long become one of the most favorite soups in our family, and we begin to learn how to cook it almost from childhood.
Did you know? The original recipe for this amazing dish was lost long ago, and we cannot now reliably know what ingredients were used for kharcho at the time when the soup was invented. However, it is reliably known that the dish included beef, walnuts and tkemali, so if you want to cook real kharcho, make sure that all these components are available.
Kitchen tools
Prepare ahead of time all the tools, utensils and utensils that you will need in the process of preparing classic beef kharcho:
- a saucepan or pan with a thick bottom and a non-stick coating with a volume of 3 liters or more,
- a spacious frying pan with a diameter of 23 cm, deep bowls (several pieces) with a capacity of 300 to 700 ml,
- teaspoons,
- cotton or linen towels,
- tablespoons,
- measuring cup or kitchen scale,
- fine sieve,
- medium or coarse grater
- slotted spoon,
- sharp knife,
- wooden spatula,
- kitchen gloves,
- cutting board,
- It is also recommended to keep a blender or food processor with a chopper ready to properly prepare some ingredients for adding to the soup.
You will need
The basis
Important! Tkemali is based on sour plums, so if you don’t have store-bought sauce on hand, you can easily replace it with four to five fresh plums, chopped in a blender or food processor. In addition, choose coarse-grained rice for your kharcho - this is what is used most often in Georgia.
Additionally
- 4 – 5 cloves of garlic;
- 25 ml sunflower oil;
- 20 g hops-suneli;
- 2 – 3 bay leaves;
- 65 g tomato paste;
- 6 g ground red pepper;
- 6 g table salt.
If you wish, you can add other spices to the soup, but remember that kharcho is a spicy dish, and it simply needs the appropriate seasonings, especially ground red pepper, which is better not to replace with black.
Cooking sequence
Preparation
Important! If you are using ready-made broth, first boil it without meat, but with the addition of salt and other seasonings, and only then add boiled and cut into pieces beef to the liquid - this way the broth will not evaporate and at the same time “renew” its meaty flavor.
First stage of preparation
Did you know? The main secret of preparing the correct frying for kharcho is to cook it not on low, but on medium heat. With timely, frequent stirring, the risk of burning is reduced to a minimum, and the vegetables are fried exactly as the soup recipe requires.
Second stage of preparation
Important! Excellent kharcho can also be cooked in a slow cooker. To do this, cook the broth using the “Stew” or “Broth” program, then pour it into a separate bowl. Pour sunflower oil into the bowl and add vegetables for frying, simmer it in tomato paste for about seven minutes in the “Frying” mode. After this, pour the broth over the fry, add the remaining seasonings, add the chopped meat and leave the kharcho to cook, setting the “Soup” program, for about half an hour.
That's all, now you know everything about how to quickly and easily prepare the perfect beef kharcho soup. Place it on serving plates, sprinkle with ground or fresh cilantro, parsley, basil or dill and serve - I’m sure your family has already flocked to the incredibly appetizing aroma of the soup.
Try not to store this dish in the refrigerator for a long time, since meat soups spoil very quickly, and rice tends to collapse into one unpleasant lump.
Kharcho with rice is a delicious dish, rich, thick and aromatic dish of Georgian cuisine.
In the classic version of preparing kharcho soup with rice, beef is traditionally supposed to be added.
Although this delicious dish can be cooked from other types of meat ingredients, such as pork, veal, lamb, as well as chicken pulp and fish fillet.
In addition, kharcho soup, filled with a variety of herbs and spices, is also prepared using uncrushed varieties of rice, which gives this dish a special piquancy and satiety.
Therefore, kharcho, a dish prepared with rice, on a unique sour base - tklapi or with its alternative component, sauce - tkemali, can become a real culinary homemade masterpiece, capable of conquering and even surprising the most skilled chef.
Kharcho soup with rice - general principles of preparation
To prepare kharcho soup with rice at home, the acidic tklapi base can be replaced with commercially available ingredients - tomato paste, adjika, cherry plum (pulp), pomegranate juice, lemon and ready-made tkemali sauce.
When adding and chopping hot peppers to a dish, you must use special gloves to prevent possible irritation of the skin and mucous membranes of the eyes.
For a special flavor in kharcho soup with rice, you need to use a sufficient amount of all kinds of herbs, spices and seasonings.
The meat must be separated from the bones, cleared of films and cut crosswise into medium-sized pieces.
To prepare kharcho soup, it is more advisable to use long-grain or short-grain rice, preferably white (polished rice) or brown (unpolished rice). You should avoid using steamed rice in such a delicious dish.
In addition, rice must be washed in seven waters before cooking. After that, the rice should be soaked in cold water for two hours to remove the gluten.
Recipe 1. Traditional Georgian soup kharcho with rice
Ingredients:
Beef or pork – 0.4 kg.
Rice – 50 gr.
Carrot – 1 pc.
Onions – 2 pcs.
Nuts (shelled, walnuts) – 0.5 tbsp.
Garlic – 1 tuber.
Tkemali sauce – 0.5 tbsp.
Khmeli - suneli, coriander.
Pepper mixture.
Hot pepper – 1 pod.
Cooking method:
To prepare a tasty and rich broth, you need to use fatty brisket or pulp from the marrow bone.
One of the above meat components needs to be poured with water and the broth brought to a boil. Then reduce the heat and cook the broth at a low simmer for about two hours. During cooking, it is advisable to remove any scale that appears from the surface of the broth.
After the required time has passed, the meat ingredient must be removed from the broth and the pulp separated from the bones. Then cut the meat into small pieces and put them back into the pan with the broth.
Peel the onion and chop it into half rings, and cut the carrots into thin slices.
While the broth is being cooked separately, you need to heat the frying pan and fry the nuts in it without adding oil. And after a certain aroma appears, they need to be removed from the frying pan, put in a mortar and crushed (you can also use a blender).
After 30 minutes of boiling the broth, you need to add rice (washed several times) and cook for some more time. Then add nuts, garlic and cook further.
Shortly before stopping cooking the kharcho soup, you need to add bay leaf, salt, pepper, suneli hops, as well as coriander and season with herbs (dill, parsley, cilantro).
To taste, you can add one hot pepper and mint leaves to the soup and cook it a little more.
Serve kharcho soup with rice to the table, you can decorate the dish with a slice of lemon.
Recipe 2. Kharcho soup with rice – “Dietary”
Ingredients:
Rice – 200 gr.
Bulbs – 3 tubers.
Garlic – 4 cloves.
Tomatoes (fresh, large size) – 500 gr.
Tomato paste – 30 gr.
Tkemali sauce – 2 tbsp. spoons.
Bay leaf – 3 leaves.
Cilantro - a bunch.
Khmeli-suneli – 60 gr.
A pod of hot pepper (or adjika).
Oil (vegetable nature).
Salt is not for everyone.
Cooking method:
To prepare a dressing for kharcho soup with rice, you need to pour boiling water over ripe tomatoes and peel them. Then the tomatoes need to be finely chopped with a knife or passed through a grater.
The onion must also be peeled and cut into small cubes, and the garlic must be grated or crushed in a mortar along with salt. A bunch of cilantro also needs to be finely chopped.
Rinse the rice separately and add it to the onion in the pan and cook until tender.
To the above ingredients you need to add tomatoes, diluted tomato paste, tkemali, garlic with salt, cilantro, spices and adjika or a pepper pod to your taste. Bring the soup to a boil, turn off the heat and let it brew under the lid.
Garnish the kharcho soup with rice - an olive and a slice of lemon, and serve.
Recipe 3. Kharcho soup with rice and potatoes
Ingredients:
Meat pulp – 0.5 kg.
Rice – 100 gr.
Bulbs – 2 tubers.
Tomato paste – 1 tbsp. spoon.
Potato – 1 pc.
Dry herbs - a quarter spoon.
Butter).
Garlic – 2 cloves.
Adjika – 2 tbsp. spoons.
Salt, hot pepper.
Cooking method:
We wash fresh lamb or pork and put it in a saucepan to cook. After boiling, remove the foam from the broth and add salt.
While the broth is preparing, peel the onions and garlic and finely chop them. We also peel the potatoes and cut them into small cubes.
Afterwards, in heated butter in a frying pan, you need to fry the garlic (for a short time), onion, and then add tomato paste, adjika and more dried herbs. All components must be thoroughly mixed and sautéed over a fire for a few more minutes.
After the meat is half cooked, the rice will need to be washed and placed in the broth along with the potatoes.
As soon as the potatoes are almost ready, you will need to add the fried ingredients to the soup and cook further.
The finished kharcho soup with rice should be allowed to brew for 20 minutes.
Before serving the dish, sprinkle the soup with finely chopped herbs and season with sour cream or mayonnaise to taste.
Recipe 4. Kharcho soup with rice (supplemented with fish)
Ingredients:
Fish (mackerel) – 650 gr.
Rice – 250 gr.
Butter (butter) – 80 gr.
Onion - 2 tubers.
Tomato paste – 120 gr.
Tkemali sauce.
Pepper (hot pod).
Cooking method:
The fish must be separated from the skin and bones. Cut the sirloin into portions. Place a saucepan on the fire and add fish waste and fill it with water.
While the broth is cooking, separately peel the onion, cut it into half rings and sauté in oil in a frying pan until golden brown.
Then rinse the rice and add it to the broth, cooking until half cooked. Then you need to add fried onions, tomato paste, tkemali sauce, spices and fish to the pan with the broth, and continue to cook until completely cooked.
Then, before serving the kharcho soup with rice and horse mackerel, it must be seasoned with finely chopped garlic and sprinkled with herbs.
Recipe 5. Kharcho soup with rice (in a slow cooker)
Ingredients:
Meat ingredients – 0.5 kg.
Onion – 2 pcs.
Carrots – 2 pcs.
Sweet pepper (Bulgarian) – 1 pc.
Tomatoes – 2 pcs.
Rice – 1 cup (from the slow cooker).
Potatoes – 3 pcs.
Vegetable oil).
Salt, pepper, spices, bay leaves – not for everybody.
Cooking method:
Cut the meat into neat pieces. Peel the onion and bell pepper and chop into half rings. Grate the carrots.
Peel the potatoes and chop into small cubes.
Rinse the rice to remove husks and gluten.
Then, every 5 minutes, you need to add onions, carrots, peppers and tomatoes to the meat in the multicooker bowl, sometimes mixing the existing ingredients.
After this, the “baking” mode must be turned off, add pre-washed rice to the multicooker bowl and fill all the ingredients with water. Next, you need to pepper the soup, add spices to it and leave to simmer in a special mode for one hour.
10 minutes before the soup is ready, add salt. After the multicooker signal that the dish is ready, you need to add bay leaf and herbs to the soup and leave it to heat for a while.
Before eating, you will need to press a certain amount of garlic into each bowl of kharcho soup with rice.
Recipe 6. Kharcho soup with rice and chicken breast
Ingredients:
Chicken breast – 1 pc.
Rice 0.5 cups.
Onion.
Tkemali sauce.
Tomatoes (or tomato paste).
Khmeli - suneli and other spices.
Greens (parsley).
Cooking method:
Fill the chicken breast with water, add salt and set to simmer, alternately skimming the foam from the surface.
Separately, peel the onion, chop it into small rings and add to the chicken breast. We wash the rice and also place it in the pan with the future soup.
A few minutes before the end of cooking the brisket, add chopped garlic, tomatoes or tomato paste, tkemali sauce, bay leaf, and spices to the soup.
Add a pod of hot pepper to your own taste. And decorate with fresh parsley leaves.
Recipe 7. Kharcho soup with rice (fresh lamb)
Ingredients:
Shoulder (young lamb, boneless, cut into pieces) – 1 kg. 200 gr.
Tomatoes – 2 pcs.
Rice (long) – 60 gr.
Hot pepper - half a pod.
Olive oil).
Tomato paste Art. spoon.
Greens (parsley, cilantro).
Tkemali sauce.
Cooking method:
Pour water over the lamb, add salt and bring to a boil. Then remove the foam and cook under a closed lid for 1 hour.
Peel the onion and chop it into small cubes. Cut the tomatoes into slices, finely chop the garlic, and remove the seeds from the pepper.
In heated oil in a frying pan, fry the onion until golden brown, add tomatoes or tomato paste and cook further, constantly stirring the ingredients.
Then put everything from the frying pan into the pan, add salt to the soup and add washed rice, tkemali sauce, parsley, garlic and pepper.
Thus, lamb soup needs to be cooked for 30 minutes.
Before serving, sprinkle the kharcho with lamb rice generously with fresh cilantro and add a slice of lemon.
If the broth is not fatty enough, you can add a spoonful of ghee (cow) butter.
In order for the meat to be more tender and appetizing, it must be cooked in a large piece to preserve the juiciness of the product.
To give the soup some heat, aroma and piquancy, you need to spare no expense and add more herbs, herbs and spices to it.
Kharcho soup is best served hot, sprinkled with herbs and garnished with olives and a slice of lemon.
Aromatic, satisfying and rich, kharcho soup is good for winter lunches, when it’s frosty outside and you want to warm up. A popular Georgian dish, a cross between meat soup and stew, has long taken root in Russian cuisine. It's hard to resist, especially if the kharcho is prepared according to all the rules. But in order to enjoy this dish, you don’t have to go to a Caucasian restaurant. Let's talk about how to properly prepare delicious kharcho soup at home in compliance with Georgian traditions.
What is kharcho
Nobody knows when the recipe first appeared in Georgian cuisine. It is known that once the word “kharcho” was used to describe beef in a sauce made from walnuts and thin slices of dried tklapi plum puree. A little later, rice began to be added to kharcho, and now in the Caucasus it is believed that real kharcho is cooked from beef, tklapi, walnuts and rice. In the summer months, plum puree is replaced with fresh plums or tkemali sauce. It is also possible to add other products to the dish, because in different regions of Georgia, kharcho is prepared in its own way, and each recipe claims to be a classic. The delicious beef broth with its piquant plum sourness, delicate flavor of walnuts and spicy aroma of spices and herbs remains unchanged. Sometimes plums are replaced with prunes, tomatoes, tomato paste or pomegranate juice.
Cooking kharcho soup correctly: preparing the meat
Classic kharcho soup is usually prepared from beef, but since there are many different recipes for this dish, it is acceptable to use lamb, pork and chicken. The meat must be the freshest and highest quality. It is best to take beef with a bone, pork ribs or fillet, lamb brisket, shoulder or neck, and if you decide to cook chicken kharcho, both thighs and breast will do. The meat is washed well, cleaned of films and tendons, but whether it is worth removing bones and fat is a personal matter for each housewife. Some cooks believe that bones add richness and flavor to the broth. If you cook a dietary version of kharcho, then fat, of course, will be superfluous, although it makes the soup much tastier. The meat is removed from the finished broth, the broth is filtered, the meat is separated from the bones, cut into pieces and returned to the broth. The basis for Georgian kharcho is ready!
Secrets of cooking kharcho
Well-washed rice of any kind, except crushed and steamed, is placed in the finished broth. Round rice is ideal for this dish, as it looks very appetizing when cooked. While the rice is cooking, add onion sautéed until golden brown, bay leaf, slightly mashed black peppercorns, crushed walnuts, cherry plum pieces or fresh plum puree (prunes, tkemali, pomegranate juice). In some recipes you can also find tomatoes - they are usually used without skin in crushed form. But it is best to take cherry tomatoes, which give the soup originality. Towards the end of cooking, spices are introduced into the kharcho - suneli hops, red capsicum, saffron, coriander, adjika and any tasty spices. If you are cooking for children, do not add hot spices to the dish. After the soup is ready, add finely chopped garlic, chopped parsley, cilantro, rosemary and celery greens to the pan.
The sequence of adding ingredients and cooking time may vary depending on the recipe. Sometimes kharcho is prepared with bell peppers, carrots and potatoes, Italians generously add olives and basil to the dish, and the French prepare kharcho with cheese and cashew nuts. The soup is steeped for 20 minutes to make it more piquant, spicy and rich.
Cooking classic beef kharcho at home
The classic soup is cooked in beef broth without onions, carrots, potatoes and tomatoes. Cook broth from 400 g of beef on the bones and 2 liters of water - this will take about 2 hours. Strain the broth, separate the meat from the bones, cut it into pieces and put it back into the pan. Add 4 tbsp to the broth. l. rice, a few sprigs of parsley and cilantro (then do not forget to take them out), and when the rice becomes soft, add half a glass of roasted crushed walnuts to the soup. At the very end of cooking, add a finely chopped head of garlic, the remaining chopped herbs, salt, 1 tsp. hops-suneli, tklapi plate or 3 tbsp. l. tkemali A pleasant sourness is a must in kharcho - it is this that gives the dish a unique Georgian flavor.
If you want to learn more about how to cook kharcho, take a look at our catalog with recipes and photographs, experiment and surprise your guests. Kharcho soup is served with fragrant homemade bread or lavash. This dish is not only appetizing, but also healthy - maybe that’s why there are so many long-livers in the Caucasus?
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