Lamb shurpa has been cooked in the East for several hundred years. Traditional Uzbek lamb shurpa is a rather thick and aromatic soup with transparent broth and vegetables. The classic recipe involves cooking shurpa in a cauldron, it turns out incredibly tasty over a fire. But even at home, you can get as close to an authentic dish as possible.
Lamb shurpa according to the classic recipe
The meat for this recipe is pitted, so the broth will be more rich. At home, the shurpa is cooked for about 1-1.5 hours.
You will need:
- 700 grams of lamb on the bone;
- 2 liters of water;
- 500 grams of potatoes;
- 1 large bell pepper;
- 1 carrot;
- 2-3 medium tomatoes;
- 1 onion;
- 1 tbsp. l. tomato paste;
- dill or parsley;
- 2 bay leaves;
- 3 cloves of garlic;
- salt, pepper to taste;
- mutton fat or vegetable oil for frying;
- red pepper to taste.
Step by step process
Rinse the meat on the bone and blot off excess moisture with a paper towel. It's good if you managed to buy a leg of lamb, but ribs, brisket, or neck will do. Fry the meat in a saucepan or container with a special non-stick coating, but not enamelled.
Pour vegetable oil on the bottom and fry on both sides until lightly browned. It is important to fry over high heat so that the crust sets quickly and the meat juice does not have time to stand out. In this case, the finished meat will be juicy and tender. Sprinkle a little salt on the oil to make it less splashing from a strong fire.
After frying, gently pour cold water into a saucepan. It is better to take water for shurpa still mineral water or ordinary water, passing it through a filter.
Cook the lamb until tender with a slow simmer to make the broth clear. Carefully remove any foam on the surface with a slotted spoon. On average, the meat is boiled in half an hour. In the classic recipe, the meat remains on the bone in the finished dish, but if you don't like bones in the soup, you can remove them.
Remove the meat from the broth, transfer to a bowl and cool. Rinse the carrots, peel and coarsely cut into 5-6 mm circles. Dip it in broth. Peel the potatoes and chop them coarsely, you can even halve them, put them in the soup. Small tubers are placed whole in the shurpa.
Separate the cooled meat from the bones and chop coarsely. Dip the chopped meat back into the broth. Peel the onion and cut also thickly into quarters of the rings. Regular onions can be replaced with red ones.
Dip the onions into a saucepan and cook together until the potatoes are half cooked. At this time, remove the seeds from the bell pepper and chop it coarsely. Put in the shurpa. Remove the stalks from the tomato and cut it, send the tomatoes to the soup.
For a beautiful broth, add tomato paste to it. Season with salt, pepper and bay leaves. The presence of spices is encouraged in shurpa, so you can add coriander or fresh cilantro, cumin, basil and other spices.
For spicy lovers, you can put a whole pod of red pepper in the soup. Add chopped garlic and herbs. When the vegetables are cooked in the shurpa, turn off the heat, add chopped garlic and herbs. Cover the shurpa with a lid and let it brew for at least 20 minutes to cool the soup a little and become richer. Nutritious lamb shurpa according to the classic recipe is ready, you can serve it.
Uzbek lamb shurpa
You will need:
- onions 500 grams;
- lamb 1 kg;
- bell pepper 3 pcs.;
- tomato 4-5 pcs.;
- carrots 2 pcs.;
- potatoes 4-5 pcs.;
- garlic 1 head;
- salt, parsley, dill, cilantro, cumin, basil, dried chili to taste.
Lamb ribs are more suitable for making shurpa according to this recipe. If there is a lot of fat on the meat, you can cut off some of it. Cut the lamb into large pieces and place them in a heavy-bottomed saucepan. Pour 2.5 liters of water.
Bring water to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat and simmer on a low boil, regularly skimming off the foam. The meat should languish more than boil.
Peel the onion and cut it into half rings. Optionally, you can fry it a little until light golden. Put the onion in a saucepan with meat; in authentic recipes, sometimes there are as many onions in shurpa as lamb.
Peel the potatoes, chop coarsely. Wash and peel the bell pepper, cut into large slices. If desired, you can also fry it a little. Cut the washed and peeled carrots into medium half rings.
It is better to peel the tomatoes; for this, make cross-shaped cuts on the fruits and pour boiling water over them. The skin will come off very easily. Remove the tough stalks and cut the tomatoes into medium pieces.
Vegetables should be laid only after the lamb is cooked. This usually takes 1, 5 or 2 hours. Put the carrots and potatoes in the broth first. Add salt, spices and peeled garlic cloves. Boil the soup until the vegetables are almost ready. Then add the tomatoes and peppers.
After 10-15 minutes after boiling, turn off the heat, add finely chopped herbs, cover and leave for about 10 minutes.
Serve shurpa always hot, garnished with fresh herbs and lavash.
Shurpa in Caucasian style from lamb
It is better to take meat for shurpa in Caucasian style from the back of a lamb or choose ribs. Buy fleshy bell peppers, tomatoes - large and sweet, greens - always fresh and aromatic. The dish is prepared in a large cauldron for about 3 hours.
You will need:
- 1 kg of lamb with bones;
- 500 g carrots;
- 500 g eggplant;
- 500 g sweet bell pepper;
- 500 g potatoes;
- 500 g red tomatoes;
- 150 g onions;
- 1/2 lemons;
- 40 g cilantro;
- arrows of garlic, spices for shurpa, bay leaf.
Put lamb in a cauldron, immediately add a whole head of peeled onions and garlic. In the summer, it is better to prefer the arrows of garlic from the garden, and in the winter, a few peeled cloves are suitable. Put 2-3 bay leaves there, pour 3 liters of cold water and put the cauldron on the fire.
After the water boils, remove the foam with a slotted spoon and set the smallest light so that even boiling is not visible on the surface. Close the cauldron tightly with a lid and leave it for 2 hours.
During this time, the meat will cook and will easily separate from the bones. Open the cauldron and salt the broth to taste and cook for another 15 minutes. Remove the lamb and separate the meat from the bones, strain the broth.
Prepare vegetables, rinse and peel. Cut large potatoes into 4 parts or in half, leave small ones whole. If cooking in early summer, wash the young potatoes well and leave them unpeeled.
Early carrots can also only be washed with a brush and put into the shurpa entirely, leaving even a part of the tops of the tops. Peel and cut the autumn carrots. Cut the onions into thin half-rings.
Cut off the multi-colored fruits of the bell pepper, cut the stalk and seeds, cut into large strips. Chop the tomatoes and eggplants coarsely. Place small tomatoes whole. In a shurpa, all the ingredients should be large chunks and well differentiated.
Place the prepared vegetables in a large saucepan, dip the boneless meat there and cover everything with strained broth. Cook shurpa for 40-45 minutes over medium heat, at the end add finely chopped cilantro and spices for shurpa. Taste and add salt as needed.
Remove the prepared lamb shurpa from the heat and leave to infuse in a saucepan for half an hour under the lid. Serve the dish hot, squeezing lemon juice into each serving plate.
Shurpa with chickpeas at home
Lamb shurpa is often prepared with chickpeas. And if you want to experiment, you can, for example, partially replace potatoes with turnips.
- lamb 400 grams;
- potatoes 2 pcs.;
- onion 1 pc.;
- carrots 1 pc.;
- chickpeas 50 grams;
- water 1500 ml;
- salt, ground black pepper, black peppercorns to taste;
- adjika 1 tsp
- bay leaf 2 pcs.
- bell pepper 1 pc.
Soak chickpeas in cool water for 8 hours (overnight). Cook the meat until tender. To do this, rinse the lamb thoroughly, put it in a saucepan and fill it with water. Bring the water to a boil over high heat and remove the froth, drain this water and rinse the meat.
The broth for shurpa itself must be boiled in second water over very low heat. It will take approximately 2.5-3 hours. In the process of cooking, add bay leaf and black peppercorns to the water.
As soon as the meat begins to lag behind the bone, then it is ready, add the washed chickpeas to the pan. Cook the chickpeas with the meat for about half an hour.
Prepare the rest of the vegetables: rinse, peel and cut at random, traditionally for screws, everything is cut into large pieces. Add vegetables to a saucepan and cook until tender over low heat for 30-40 minutes.
At the very end, put adjika, salt and pepper to taste in the broth. Adjika, if desired, can be replaced with roasted tomatoes, garlic and onions.
Bring the shurpa to a boil and remove from the stove. Place the lid on the saucepan and let it brew. Serve shurpa hot as a daily meal or for a festive table in a beautiful tureen.
Shurpa recipe with chickpeas and cabbage: Uzbek recipe
The mandatory ingredients in this recipe are lamb and chickpeas. Variations are possible with the rest. Usually Uzbeks add shalgan vegetable to the shurpa, an analogue of the Russian turnip, this will give the dish its own flavor. You can replace the shalgan with ordinary cabbage.
You will need:
- lamb 1 kg;
- chickpeas 2 cup.;
- raw potatoes 6 pcs.;
- onions 2, 5 pcs. - 0, 5 pcs. for frying and 2 pcs. into broth;
- garlic 1 pc.;
- red tomatoes 3 pcs.;
- medium carrots 6 pcs.;
- Bulgarian red pepper 2 pcs.;
- small white cabbage or turnip 1 pc.;
- salt and pepper to taste;
- vegetable oil for frying 50 ml;
- greens 1 bunch.
Soak the chickpeas in plenty of water and let sit overnight. Cut the meat into large pieces. Finely chop half of the onion into cubes or half rings. Pour oil into a large cauldron and fry the meat and onions until golden brown, salt and pepper.
Pour boiled water over the meat, let it boil and add whole garlic cloves and the remaining onion, cut into quarters. Drain the water from the chickpeas, peel the carrots, rinse and cut into half rings. After 15 minutes after boiling the broth, put carrots and chickpeas in it.
Simmer for 1 hour over low heat. Peel the peppers and cut into large strips, cut the tomatoes into 6 pieces. After an hour, put tomatoes, bell peppers, and whole cabbage the size of a palm into the shurpa. Cook for another half hour until the chickpeas are half cooked. Check the dish for salt and pepper.
Peel the potatoes and cut into large cubes, add to the soup. After it is cooked, put the herbs in the shurpa, boil for 2-3 minutes, turn off the heat and let it brew for 10-15 minutes. After that, the shurpa can be served on the table.
