Many Europeans have heard that Kharcho is a Georgian dish, but it has a huge number of copies, accurate and inaccurate, that are being debated about: what is permissible in the technology of its preparation, what ingredients should be included in its composition?
What meat is required for chicken kharcho soup? Step by step, in one recipe - variants of the popular Caucasian soup.
Basic principles of making kharcho soup (step by step)
Kharcho is associated with a spicy and spicy dish, with tomatoes and rice, and even - with potatoes! Literally, translated from Georgian, kharcho - "beef soup." Kharcho with other types of meat exists in Georgian cuisine, but the potatoes in this soup are the invention of Soviet catering.
Excessive sharpness of dishes is peculiar only to Mingrelian cuisine. Megrelia is the western part of Georgia, and the rest of the regional cuisine is spicy rather than spicy. To make Mengrel spicy kharcho soup, adjika is used, which includes hot red pepper (90%). Not everyone likes it, so adjust the amount of spices as you like.
Cilantro, parsley, basil, celery, garlic and onions are spicy ingredients typical of Caucasian cuisine. Spices give the national flavor to kharcho soup: Suneli hops, ground coriander, Imereti saffron. Spicy herbs are added to the finished dish to avoid cooking, during which their flavor is lost. Only onions are subjected to heat treatment, but only slightly fried.
Is it possible to use chicken instead of beef for kharcho soup? Yes, just add chicken meat, at least, to the beef broth, cooked from a set of tubular beef bones. Chicken meat has a too neutral taste. The traditional kharcho soup is not prepared from chicken, but only from beef. In general, chicken is another Georgian dish, but if, indeed, there was no beef or lamb brisket, do not be discouraged: spices will hide this shortcoming. In addition, chicken kharcho soup is almost a dietary dish, given the large number of healthy amino acids and low calorie content of this type of meat.
The peculiarity of kharcho soup in any version is sour dressing: tkemali sauce (ქლიავი (cargo) - plums). Tomato dressing is used in Megrelian and Abkhaz cuisine. Sometimes tkemali is used in combination with tomatoes to give a bright color.
Another traditional component of the cuisine of the peoples of the Caucasus is walnuts. They are used in many dishes, for flavor and thickening. The crushed kernels are also added to the kharcho, but this is optional.
Rice is also used to thicken kharcho, but it should not be boiled. Kharcho is removed from the stove when the rice is in a half-prepared state, so that the cereal “reaches” the hot liquid without heating. The consistency of kharcho soup is very thick. The ratio of liquid to solid components can be estimated as 4: 6.
Potato? In those days, when kharcho soup appeared in the cuisine of the Caucasian peoples, nobody knew about potatoes even in Russia. Do not offend the mountaineers by ignorance of such features of national cuisine. They will also forgive chicken in kharcho soup, and leave potatoes for cooking other soups. Of the usual vegetables that are used to prepare first courses in Russian home cooking, for chicken kharcho you will need only onions and hot peppers.
Step-by-step recipe for chicken kharcho soup
This recipe shows weight only for the main components of the soup. Of course, the taste of kharcho depends on spicy herbs, spices and sour dressing no less than on meat, broth and rice, but it is better to control the severity and acidity, as well as the number of spicy spices. Spices and sauces, generous bunches of spicy herbs - the visiting card of Caucasian cuisine. Without these components, you can’t even start cooking Georgian dishes. Chicken can be replaced with any kind of meat and even offal, and try to keep the composition of the remaining ingredients of the kharcho soup in the original.
Ingredients:
Meat 1.2 -1.5 kg
Water or meat broth 3.5 l
Onion 400 g
Rice 100 g
Ghee and vegetable oil - only 120-150 g
A mixture of ground peppers
Ground coriander
Tomatoes in their own juice and pasta
Tkemali (sauce, plum)
Hot peppers, green or adjika
Imereti Saffron
Utsho-suneli or sunli hops
Leafy greens: cilantro, green basil, parsley, celery
Walnuts - to taste
Garlic
Order of preparation:
The step-by-step recipe indicates different ways: for kharcho soup, take chicken or beef, or lamb; a good option is the combination of different types of meat. The ideal taste of chicken kharcho, prepared on the basis of beef broth, is an almost original recipe. It is advisable to cook the soup in meat broth, and not in water, to give it a more rich taste. If you opt for chicken and a similar broth, then you will need more garlic, for other types of meat garlic should be present as a trail flavor.
1. Cut the meat into bars - 1.5 x 1.5 x 5 cm. Try to strip it of the films, if it is beef or lamb, peel the chicken first.
2. Put prepared meat in boiling broth; cook until soft, in the simmer mode. If you cook whole chicken or ribs, after cooking, remove the meat from the pan, separate it from the bones, and then return small pieces of pulp to the pan. Do not forget to remove the foam before boiling during the preparation of the broth. To make the broth clear, put a whole carrot and onion in it. When the broth is ready, remove the vegetables.
The second, more interesting way: pepper chopped cubes, pour vegetable oil, mix well so that the meat is covered with an oil film; fry in a preheated cast iron pan in small portions until a crust forms on the surface. Transfer the meat to a pan, pour boiling broth and, reducing the heat, cook for 10 minutes, if it is chicken fillet, and for lamb or beef, increase the cooking time to 20 minutes.
3. Rinse well, soak it for half an hour, Drain the water, but do not rush to throw in a pan with meat. It should be slightly undercooked, so add it at the same time as sour dressing, or about five minutes earlier.
4. Onions cut into small cubes. Combine the vegetable oil with the melted butter, pour into a preheated cast-iron frying pan, put a pinch of salt and sauté the onion until transparent.
5. Blanch tomatoes, peel, remove seeds (for beauty), cut into cubes. Put them in a deep pan, adding to the onion. Add tkemali, tomato paste and simmer until most of the juice has evaporated. Winter version of kharcho dressing - canned tomatoes in their own juice.
There are options for Kharcho soup without tkemali. There is no suitable sauce - it will still be delicious, but then increase the number of tomatoes.
6. To the tomato-plum dressing, add ground coriander, Imereti saffron, a mixture of ground peppers and suneli hops. If you decide to add adjika, reduce the amount of dry ground pepper. Imereti saffron and Suneli hops are important additives with a national flavor.
7. Stir the dressing and taste it. It should be very sharp and slightly salted, taking into account the total weight of the soup, with broth and meat.
Not necessarily, but for contrast and piquancy, you can add sugar - it always very well sets off the sharpness and improves the taste of meat dishes.
8. Put the meat dressing along with the rice. Cook until half cooked rice.
9. Optionally, add ground walnut kernels. Pay attention to the consistency of the soup: it should be thick enough. So, if the amount of vegetable and tomato dressing was not guessed on time, then nuts are a good way to fix the consistency. Add at the end an additional portion of raw vegetables is not worth it. Before chopping kernels, lightly fry in a dry pan to better reveal their flavor.
10. Chop the fresh herbs, put it in the soup, and immediately remove the pan from the heat. Chicken or beef kharcho should be well infused so that the aroma of greens goes into the broth. Thin rings of hot green pepper put in plates, along with leaves of parsley or cilantro.
Step-by-step recipe for chicken kharcho soup: useful tips
How to serve kharcho? Some gourmets claim that you need pita bread, but pita bread is Armenian bread, not Georgian. Then it’s better - mchadi, Georgian cornmeal tortillas. Matsoni is also served with chicken kharcho soup, although this sour-milk drink is of Armenian origin, but it is also popular in Georgia. The Russian version - sour cream and bread - is also a good combination. It is important that next to a real Georgian dish, there is always a large assortment of spicy greens, tomatoes, peppers - in Georgia they are often served as a whole and in bunches.
It is worth noting that tomatoes are abundant in Georgian dishes, and they are one of the favorite ingredients in national cuisine. But when Columbus went to the shores of America, Georgia had been preparing kharcho for several centuries, because rice was grown there from the second century, and plums and cherry plum, from which to this day they prepare sauce for meat dishes, have been growing in the Caucasus since ancient times. These fruits were the very first ingredient for sour dressing for soup. Therefore, if you want the chicken kharcho recipe, at least, to be original in the composition of the dressing, do not exclude tkemali from the recipe, and try to ensure that the main note in the soup is plum rather than tomato sauce.
Tomatoes do not necessarily give a bright color to kharcho soup - it can be saffron and red pepper. A beautiful saturated color is obtained if the meat is pre-fried in a pan.
When roasting meat for kharcho, add 100-150 ml of wine to it: to the chicken fillet - white dry, and to beef or lamb - red. In addition to aroma, this technique saturates the broth with a bright shade.
