Beef Harcho with Tomatoes
Description
The recipe won't take much time. In fact, preparing delicious and authentic harcho isn't that difficult—you don't need to be born in Georgia or have a chef's diploma. It's much simpler than that. All you need is to follow a few basic rules and find a good recipe, such as this easy beef harcho with tomatoes. What else should you know? Remember, you'll never achieve an authentic Georgian dish without adding beef, Tkemali, and walnuts to your soup. Without these ingredients, there's no point even starting. After that, every cook has their own secrets—some add tomato paste, others include potatoes, but I personally prefer when the taste of tomatoes stands out in the soup, making it more flavorful and vividly colored. Of course, you can adjust or add ingredients to suit your taste, but I'll just tell you how I like to make it. Serve the soup hot.
Instructions
- 1
Step 1
At the very beginning, we need to rinse the beef and put it on to boil for 2–2.5 hours, remembering to skim off the foam. Rinse the rice several times until the water runs clear, cover it with water, and let it soak. Grind the saffron with a small amount of salt, pour boiling water over it, and let it steep for a while. Now the preliminary stage is complete, and we can move on.
- 2
Step 2
Pour vegetable oil into a frying pan and sauté diced onion and minced chili pepper in it. I add just a little bit of pepper, but you can adjust the amount to your taste.
- 3
Step 3
Put the tomatoes into boiling water for a minute to make the skin easier to remove, then peel and cut them into small cubes. Add them to the pan with the onion and chili, and sauté everything for 5 minutes.
- 4
Step 4
Pour the meat broth (about 2 ladles) into the frying pan, add salt and pepper, and simmer the vegetables for 10 minutes over low heat.
- 5
Step 5
Meanwhile, toast the nuts in a dry skillet for just 1-2 minutes, then crush them in a mortar.
- 6
Step 6
Grind the fresh herbs and garlic, then crush them in a mortar.
- 7
Step 7
When the beef is ready, remove it from the broth, separate it from the bone, and cut into pieces. Return the meat to the pot, add rice, saffron with water, stewed vegetables, bay leaf, and khmeli-suneli. After 10–15 minutes, when the rice is cooked, add walnuts, herbs ground with garlic, tkemali, and salt to taste if needed. Turn off the heat, remove the bay leaf from the pot, cover the pot with a lid, and let the soup steep for about 20 minutes.
- 8
Step 8
Pour the harcho into bowls and enjoy its amazing taste.