Georgian kharcho: better than restaurant recipe

Kharcho is an integral part of Georgian cuisine. This soup is made with beef, and it is thick, aromatic, and very filling. It can quickly warm you up after a long walk in the cold.

Properly prepared kharcho always turns out thick, spicy, and pungent, with an abundance of herbs and Georgian spices. To prepare it, we need 1 kg of medium-fat beef pulp, 2 large onions, 3 tablespoons of tkemali sauce, 2.5 tablespoons of ground walnuts, 6 cloves of garlic, dried hot red pepper, 50 g of tomato paste, 2–4 tablespoons of rice, dill, parsley, cilantro, 2 small celery stalks, 2 bay leaves, 0.5 teaspoon of saffron, 1 teaspoon of coriander, 1 teaspoon of khmeli-suneli, 0.5 teaspoon of utskho-suneli.

First, rinse the meat and cut it into small pieces. Place in a pot, cover with water, and set over medium heat. The beef cooks for about an hour and a half — so it neither overcooks nor remains tough. When the water begins to boil, use a slotted spoon to skim off the meat foam until the broth is clean and clear. While the meat cooks, add the bay leaf, a peeled whole onion, and two small celery stalks to the broth.

While the meat cooks, prepare the soup dressing. Pour two to four tablespoons of rice (depending on the volume of water) into a cup and rinse the grains. Set aside for a moment. Walnuts can be bought already ground or ground yourself. We took whole walnuts, sorted them, cleaned them of debris, and ground them. For the soup we need two and a half tablespoons, so set those aside in a separate cup as well.

Among the ingredients is tkemali sauce — made from the eponymous type of sour plum. For the soup we used homemade sauce that we made ourselves. However, besides that, you can use the tkemali plum itself or tklapi (fruit leather) made from tkemali. If you have none of these, you can, of course, take ready-made tkemali sauce from the store or use any other sour plum.

Add the chopped cilantro with garlic, spices, and a couple of tablespoons of tkemali to the broth and stir, cook for about a minute. Then pour in the ground walnuts. Stir the soup again and cook for another minute. Finally, add the chopped cilantro, parsley, and dill to the broth and stir again. Turn off the heat. The soup is ready!