Shurpa is as much the pride of oriental cooks as pilaf or sweets famous all over the world. Another feature of Asian cuisine is the almost unchanged menu in the Khan's palace and the nomad's tent. So the delicious aroma of shurpa is equally familiar to commoners and nobles. Our selection contains various variations on the theme of a hearty dish, which, if you wish, is easy to prepare in your home kitchen, regardless of whether it is in Persia, Kaliningrad or the Arctic Circle.
General principles for making shurpa at home
• To prepare a delicious shurpa at home, you will need a voluminous cauldron or a large pan with a double bottom. You can use the slow cooker, if there is one.
• There are two types of shurpa: boiled and fried. In the first case, the meat broth is cooked for a long time, in which vegetables are laid. In the second option, the meat is fried in a pan with vegetables, after which it is transferred to a cauldron or pot and poured with water or a pre-prepared broth. In both cases, the dish is excellent, but with completely different tastes.
• Shurpa is traditionally prepared from young lamb, but if you wish, you can try to cook it from meat of any kind. The main thing is that these are the best pieces of carcass with pits: loin or brisket. The ribs will also fit, but they are not enough meat for shurpa. The taste of the soup will turn out to be almost standard if the broth is cooked from meat of different varieties.
• As for the vegetable part of the shurpa, it consists of carrots, onions, potatoes, bell peppers. Often add turnips and fresh tomatoes.
• In addition to vegetables, shurpa can be supplemented with other products, such as chickpeas. It needs pre-treatment; chickpeas must be kept in cold water for eight hours.
• The taste of the dish depends on the spices. As a rule, they use zira, coriander, black pepper. For pungency, add pods of hot pepper. Sometimes fruits are added to the shurpa, it can be quince or green apples.
• You can’t cook real shurpa without fresh herbs - cilantro, fresh dill, young basil or parsley, any one will do, choose according to taste. A prerequisite - there should be a lot of greens. It is added at the end of cooking or during vacation, in portioned plates.
Shurpa in Uzbek at home
Ingredients:
• ribs of young lamb - half a kilo;
• fat tail fat - 50 gr.;
• 300 gr. bitter onion;
• sweet purple onion - 200 gr.;
• carrot - 250 gr.;
• two large potatoes;
• two bell peppers;
• 300 gr. Aronia;
• hot pepper pod;
• fresh tomatoes - two large;
• zira, cilantro, coriander, basil - to taste;
• parsley;
• a small quince fruit, can be replaced with a green sour apple.
Cooking method:
1. Chop the lamb into pieces and put in a pan, in three liters of cold water. Removing foam from the broth surface, bring to a boil at the maximum of fire. Then add zira and coriander to a small pinch of broth, cover the pan with a lid and cook, avoiding too much boiling, for exactly an hour.
2. After that, put half the rings of bitter onion and medium-sized cubes of fat tail fat into the broth. Add coarsely chopped carrots and potatoes, thick turnip sticks, hot pepper. We continue to cook in the same mode for another hour.
3. At this time, we dip the tomatoes in hot water, stand in it for two minutes and quickly cool under the pressure of cold water. Remove the peel from the tomatoes.
4. We extract seeds from peppers, and wash off their remains. Cut the pulp into medium-sized cubes.
5. Water quince and cut into slices. A sharp, powerful knife will be required, since the quince flesh is very dense. If the pulp is dark in the middle of the fruit, do not discard, but carefully cut this part.
6. Quince slices, slices of sweet pepper and tomatoes, dip into the broth when the potatoes begin to soften, after 10 minutes from the moment of its addition. At the end, add half the rings of sweet onion to the shurpa, adjust the taste by adding sugar and salt, bring to a boil again and remove from heat.
7. Garnish the shurpa with chopped parsley when serving.
How to cook shurpa at home in a cauldron
Ingredients:
• any meatless meat on the bone (brisket, loin) - a kilogram;
• three onion heads;
• one bell pepper;
• 400 gr. fresh tomatoes;
• three large carrots;
• 700 gr. potatoes;
• a large head of garlic;
• incomplete spoon of zira;
• a large bunch of cilantro;
• a tablespoon of ready-made seasoning "For pilaf," or "For kharcho."
Cooking method:
1. Without separating from the bones, wash the meat and boil in three liters of water until tender. First, quickly bring to a boil, removing the foam all the time, then cook under the lid over low heat for at least two hours. We take out a piece of meat from the broth and, putting it in a bowl, let it cool.
2. Cool and broth. In this case, fat will collect on the surface. It will need to be removed and set aside, it will come in handy for frying.
3. Remove the boiled meat from the bones and cut it into large pieces, 3 × 4 cm in size. We chop the onions in half rings. Place the tomatoes for three minutes in boiling water, dip them in cold water for a minute and remove the skin without effort. Cut the remaining vegetables in equal, sufficiently large pieces.
4. We transfer the fat collected from the broth to the cauldron, heat it well and lightly pass the onion half rings in it. Once they become transparent, add the boiled meat and fry the pieces until golden brown. Watch the onion, its strips should acquire an amber hue, but not burn.
5. Put the carrots with bell pepper in a cauldron, add spices and mix thoroughly and continue to fry for another couple of minutes. Next, add a little meat broth and give a quarter of an hour to slowly boil.
6. Add large potato wedges, pour into the cauldron the remaining broth and cook after boiling over low heat until cooked. This can take about 20 minutes.
7. After that we dip whole tomatoes without peel into the shurpa and cook for another quarter hour. Dress the soup with herbs and chopped garlic, bring to a boil again and turn off the fire immediately.
8. Before serving, let the shurpa stand for at least 10 minutes so that it absorbs the aroma of garlic and cilantro.
Delicious and simple shurpa at home with chickpeas
Ingredients:
• flesh on the bone - 500 gr.;
• 100 gr. dry chickpeas;
• onion - 2 large heads;
• five medium potatoes;
• a small green turnip;
• two carrots;
• fresh tomatoes - 2 pcs.;
• five large cloves of garlic;
• fruits of red bell pepper - 2 pcs.;
• zira and coriander - 1/3 tsp;
• a small pod of hot pepper;
• fresh herbs of your choice - cilantro, young dill, garden parsley;
• refined oil - 50 ml.
Cooking method:
1. First of all, you need to prepare chickpeas. Soak it overnight in a large volume of warm water. After that we rinse several times - absolutely transparent water should drain last.
2. Pour oil into a large cauldron and place it on a strong fire. As soon as the fat ceases to crack, lower large pieces of meat and fry until a tight crust.
3. Add half the onion to the meat, add, season with spices. We cook by regularly stirring and slightly reducing the fire until the onions are transparent. Then we add two liters of water to the meat and, carefully removing the resulting foam, wait until it boils.
4. We put in the Shurpa swollen chickpeas and whole, peeled cloves of garlic. Dip coarsely chopped carrots, and turnip whole. Cook the soup on the quietest fire for about an hour.
5. We lay large potato wedges, and after 25 minutes - large strips of sweet pepper and peeled tomatoes. We continue to cook the shurpa until the chickpeas and potatoes are ready.
6. At the end, add spices to the soup, add salt to taste. We fill in the chopped greens and, bringing to a boil, remove from the stove. We give shurpa to stand for a quarter of an hour under the lid.
How to cook shurpa at home in a slow cooker
Ingredients:
• ribs or pork on the bone - 400 gr.;
• two liters of water;
• a pound of potatoes;
• two large onion heads;
• three small tomatoes;
• one carrot;
• large Bulgarian peppercorn;
• vegetable oil;
• to your taste - zira, ground pepper and ready-made seasoning of hops-suneli.
Cooking method:
1. Turn on the slow cooker in baking mode and pour vegetable oil into the bowl, about 40 ml. After waiting for it to heat up well, drop the large pieces of pork and fry for 25 minutes. Try to separate the ribs so that each piece has two bones.
2. To the fried meat, put the sliced carrots, onion half rings, large pieces of pulp of bell pepper and large slices of tomatoes. Fry vegetables with meat for another 20 minutes.
3. Put the potatoes, season with spices, put a teaspoon of fine salt. Pour two liters of freshly boiled water into the bowl and, stirring well, put the slow cooker for exactly one hour into the "Extinguishing" mode.
4. After the end of the program, let the shurpe stand for 10 minutes on heating. Done!
Pork Shurpa at home
Ingredients:
• a kilogram of fatty pork on the bone;
• seven small potatoes;
• carrot;
• red bell pepper;
• large meaty tomato;
• garlic;
• spices: paprika, zira, ground pepper;
• herbs to taste: a mixture of cilantro with dill or parsley.
Cooking method:
1. We washed the washed meat in a whole piece in two liters of cold water. Bringing to a boil, constantly remove the resulting var. Dip large pieces of carrots and onion halves into the broth, cook on low heat for an hour and a half.
2. We take out the meat, let it cool slightly and, having separated it from the bones, cut it into pieces. Not small. We return the boiled meat back to the broth.
3. The peeled potato tubers are cut into two or four parts and sent to the pan after the pork. Cook the potatoes until tender, about forty minutes, depending on the size of the slices.
4. Add large slices of tomatoes and wide strips of bell pepper to the shurpa. After boiling for medium-low heat for a quarter of an hour, season the soup with spices. Just put a third of a teaspoon of each seasoning.
5. Cook the shurpa for another five minutes. Dress with chopped herbs, press the two cloves of garlic in a press. Warm up a minute and turn off the heat.
How to cook thick shurpa at home with beef with tomato paste
Ingredients:
• paired beef brisket - kilogram;
• 600 gr. non-digestible potatoes;
• one onion;
• 5 gr. ground pepper (black);
• 100 gr. carrots;
• three bay leaves;
• a large pod of bell pepper;
• 60 gr. tomato paste;
• five peas of pepper;
• refined oil;
• zira - 5 gr.
Cooking method:
1. Thoroughly rinse the breast and chop it into pieces. We make them medium-sized, but not small. The desired size is 4 × 5 cm.
2. Peel the potatoes, cut the tubers in half and fill with water so as not to darken.
3. Peel the carrots, bell peppers and onions, chop the vegetables - carrots with thin sticks, and onions with pepper - straws.
4. In a pan, briefly heat the oil and dip all chopped vegetables into it immediately. Stirring, we pass on a small fire until the carrots soften.
5. Stirring, add meat to vegetables and leave to simmer with the lid closed until cooked. About 7 minutes before the end you need to enter a tomato.
6. Transfer the meat stewed with vegetables into a double-bottom pan and fill it with water. It is advisable to cook the bone broth in advance. After setting medium heat, bring to a boil, and then cook on low heat for half an hour, add potatoes with lavrushka and spices. Cook for another half hour and check the potatoes are ready.
7. When serving, sprinkle the prepared shurpa with greens, you can add a little chopped garlic.
Tricks for making shurpa at home - useful tips
• Shurpa does not have to be oily. You can cook a lean dish of poultry or lean slices of meat. Often it is cooked from game and even fish.
• If the meat is not fat enough, you can add a little fat tail fat, sliced in medium-sized pieces, when cooking the broth.
• Turnip can give shurpa a characteristic root vegetable bitterness, so it is undesirable to grind it. To give a specific taste, it is enough to boil a whole root crop in the broth and then remove it.
• It is permissible to replace fresh tomatoes that are not available in the winter season with tomato juice or by putting tomato puree, and fresh herbs - dried.
