Traditionally, kharcho is made from beef. However, the taste of the Georgian national dish will not become worse if other types of meat, such as chicken, are used for its preparation.
To prepare kharcho from chicken, you will need the following products: 600 g of chicken, 150 g of rice, 2 medium heads of onions, 100 g of walnuts peeled from the shell and partitions, 2 tbsp. l. satsebeli, 3-4 cloves of garlic, 1 tsp. hops-suneli, red ground pepper, salt.
The chicken is thoroughly washed in running water and dried with paper towels. A whole piece of chicken is boiled for 1-1.5 hours. Then the chicken is removed from the broth and cooled. The bones are removed and discarded, and the meat is cut into rather large pieces and sent back to the broth. The most convenient way to make kharcho is to take chicken breast.
To make the soup as rich as possible, the meat is placed in cold water. If you want to reduce the fat content of the finished dish, put the meat in a saucepan when the water has already boiled.
During cooking, it is necessary to periodically remove the emerging foam from the surface of the broth. As soon as the broth boils, the heat is reduced to low. When the meat is ready, pour the satsebeli sauce into the pan.
If it is not possible to buy satsebeli, adjika or tkemali sauce can replace it. It is also recommended to use peeled, finely chopped ripe tomatoes or pomegranate juice. The main thing is that the soup has a characteristic sour taste. In Georgia, tklali is often added to kharcho. The tortilla is broken into pieces and simply put into the soup. However, as there are villages in Georgia, there are so many recipes for real kharcho.
Tklali is a dry thin flat cake, for the preparation of which tkemali varieties mashed to a puree state are used. The flatbreads are dried in the sun.
The rice is washed until the water flowing from it becomes clear. Usually, for cooking kharcho, they take cereals with long grains. Peeled onions and cut into thin strips. Since the dish is being prepared for a long time, it is recommended to cut the vegetable not across, but along the onion. In this case, the structure of the fibers will remain and the onion straw will not turn into gruel by the end of cooking. Rice and onions are added to the pan and continue to cook the kharcho over low heat for half an hour.
Peeled walnuts are quickly fried in a dry frying pan. Then the nuts are crushed with a blender or with a mortar. The nuts, ground until smooth, should have a pleasant smell and release oil. Garlic cloves are rubbed on a fine grater or passed through a press. Nuts and garlic are added to the soup. After 10-15 minutes, the kharcho is seasoned with suneli hops, ground red pepper and salt to taste. It is recommended to cover the finished soup with a lid and insist, removing from the stove, for about 30 minutes.
Real kharcho has a spicy pungent taste. The dish is much thicker than other soups. Therefore, in the last minutes of cooking, the soup should be stirred periodically. Do not cook kharcho over high heat, as the dish may burn.
The soup is poured into portioned bowls and sprinkled with fresh parsley, cilantro, celery or green onions. It is customary to serve sour cream and lavash with kharcho.
