Kharcho Megrelian style with veal
4 servings
30 minutes
There is kharcho soup - a thick spicy soup with meat, rice and tomatoes. And there is kharcho Megrelian style - it is more of a sauce. You can dip bread in it, or you can eat it with gomi.
1
We take veal, although beef tenderloin can also be used — just veal cooks faster. Cut the meat into small pieces, the size of half a matchbox. Place in a pan and fry in unscented butter or vegetable oil for 1-2 minutes. Once the meat is covered with a golden crust, transfer it to a large pot.
- Veal: 1 kg
- Butter: 50 g
2
Finely chop the onion and mix it with the meat. Pour everything with wine, and you can add a little water. If the veal is lean, add a piece of butter. First, place the pot on medium heat, and when it starts to boil, reduce the heat and simmer for about thirty minutes.
- Onion: 3 heads
- Dry white wine: 0.5 glass
- Butter: 50 g
3
At this time, we start with the nuts. You can't overdo it with nuts — the kharcho only benefits from them. Usually, we take a bowl of peeled nuts. They can be crushed in a mortar or passed through a meat grinder a couple of times. In Georgia, it is believed that due to innovations like electric mixers and meat grinders, nuts lose their flavor. When you crush them in a mortar, nut oil is released, creating a paste. If you pass them through a meat grinder, you get a dry powder. Nevertheless, few people now spend effort on the mortar. So it's better to find young nuts — they remain oily even after the meat grinder.
- Walnuts: 65 g
4
After thirty minutes, the meat is almost ready — it should melt in your mouth, and the onion should almost dissolve. We add ground nuts, finely chopped fresh cilantro, and spices — saffron, khmeli-suneli, coriander — to the pot. Basically, you can go to the spice stall at the market and ask for a set for kharcho — they will throw the necessary spices into a bag and mix them.
- Walnuts: 65 g
- Coriander: 2 bunchs
- Imeretian saffron: 1 tablespoon
- Khmeli-suneli: 1 tablespoon
- Ground coriander: 10 g
5
Add salt, pepper, and a jar of adjika — if you want the kharcho to be very spicy, but you can add less. You can also add a couple of tablespoons of tomato paste for acidity, or a drop of wine vinegar. But before pouring in the vinegar, you need to remove the pot from the heat — otherwise, the nuts will darken.
- Megrelian adjika: 250 g
- Tomato paste: 2 tablespoons
- Sea salt: to taste
- Ground black pepper: to taste
6
We continue to simmer for another twenty minutes. It turns out a bit like beef stroganoff, but a little thicker. The technology is the same. By the way, in Georgia, there are many different cafes that prepare beef stroganoff. They even add wine, just like in kharcho, which makes it incredibly tasty.