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Kharcho

Name: Kharcho
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 95 min
Total time: 115 min
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: Georgian
Ingredients: 700 g Beef chuck, cubed; 2 l Water; 100 g Long-grain rice; 100 g Shelled walnuts; 120 g Tkemali (sour plum sauce); 250 g Onion; 4 cloves Garlic cloves; 40 g Tomato paste; 30 ml Sunflower oil; 6 g Sweet smoked paprika; 2 leaves Bay leaves; 12 g Fine sea salt; 3 g Ground black pepper; 30 g Fresh coriander; 15 g Flat-leaf parsley

Georgian beef soup thickened with ground walnuts and soured with tkemali plum sauce, with rice, a great deal of garlic and a forest of coriander.

Prep: 20 min
Cook: 95 min
Difficulty: Easy

About this dish

Kharcho is built on two ideas that most soups elsewhere never use: nuts as a thickener and sour fruit as a seasoning. Ground walnuts give body and a faint bitterness where another cuisine would reach for flour or cream, and tkemali — a sauce of sour wild plums — does the job that vinegar or lemon does elsewhere, but with fruit behind the acid. Both are pantry staples in Georgia, which is why a dish that sounds elaborate is in fact everyday food.

Gluten-free
Lactose-free
Not vegetarian because of Beef chuck, cubed

Ingredients

4servings

700gBeef chuck, cubed
2lWater
100gLong-grain rice
100gShelled walnuts
120gTkemali (sour plum sauce)
250gOnion
4clovesGarlic cloves
40gTomato paste
30mlSunflower oil
6gSweet smoked paprika
2leavesBay leaves
12gFine sea salt
3gGround black pepper
30gFresh coriander
15gFlat-leaf parsley

Instructions

Simmer the diced beef in the water with bay and salt for 60 minutes, skimming the foam in the first ten.
60 min
Tip: Skim early and it comes off in a grey raft; skim late and it has broken up into the broth. This is the only chance to keep the soup clean-tasting.
Fry the chopped onion in the oil for 6 minutes, then stir in the tomato paste and cook 2 minutes more.
8 min
Tip: Cooking the paste in fat before it meets liquid is what removes its tinny edge. Two minutes and it darkens by a shade — that is the signal.
Add the onion mixture and the rice to the pot with the paprika and pepper, and cook 15 minutes.
15 min
Tip: Long-grain rice, and not too much of it. Kharcho is a soup with rice in it, not a rice porridge, and rice keeps swelling in the pot long after the heat is off.
Stir in the finely ground walnuts, the tkemali and the crushed garlic, and simmer very gently for 10 minutes.
10 min
Tip: Gently. Ground walnuts release oil, and a hard boil splits that oil out into a slick on the surface instead of leaving it bound into the body of the soup.
Take off the heat, stir in a great deal of chopped coriander and parsley, and let it stand before serving.
2 min
Tip: Ten minutes standing is not idleness — kharcho tastes noticeably better once the walnut and the sour plum have had time to meet.