The classic recipe for beef shurpa can be used as an alternative to regular rassolnik, borscht, solyanka and other first courses. Advice from Uzbek, Armenian and other chefs helps create a stew with a unique taste. Ease of preparation allows you to cook camp food in a cauldron in nature.
The rich broth can be obtained thanks to beef bones. Sometimes lamb or pork is used instead of beef. A set of vegetables and seasonings is chosen to taste. Everyone may have their own favorite recipe or secret cooking method.
Beef shurpa
Small children love this dish because the meat is not too fatty and the boiled vegetables are very tasty. Fans of outdoor activities often cook shurpa over a fire. This is not difficult to do if you light the fire correctly and install the cauldron. The dish will simmer, so it will take a lot of time to cook.
Strong fire is not used, so you need to make sure that the coals are always smoldering and no flames appear.
Cooking takes approximately 2 hours, the time depends on the size of the cauldron and the type of meat. A delicious dish is prepared if fresh ingredients and fragrant seasonings are used. The broth is traditionally served in deep bowls. Vegetables and meat are laid out in separate plates. Pickled onions are a great addition to this dish.
How to deliciously cook beef shurpa
High-quality beef is selected to create a unique shurpa. The main value of the dish is the broth, which has absorbed the taste of all the ingredients and seasonings.
Tips for choosing beef
Tips for choosing beef:
- The color of the meat indicates its quality; bright pink beef with a rich hue is selected.
- The fat layers near the pulp are white or slightly yellowish. Pink lard indicates the use of harmful solutions during harvesting.
- The meat has a uniform color, there are no spots, overflows, black, green or gray inclusions.
- Yellow fat indicates the age of the animal. The meat of old cows can be eaten, but for some dishes it is advisable to use young calves.
- Fresh meat is bought early in the morning at the market. A weathered crust, hardened surface and edges are a sign of stale products.
- Mucus should not be present on quality meat; the flesh is always dry and does not stick to the skin when touched.
- After pressure, dents are immediately leveled out; fresh meat should be elastic. You can identify frozen products if their shape is restored in a few seconds.
- Certified products are always marked; after inspection, sanitary workers mark on them the preparation time and the permissible sell-by date. Refrigerated products cannot be stored for longer than 5 days.
- High-quality beef smells pleasant, there is no aroma of spices or herbs. Unscrupulous sellers use foreign substances to hide the smell of rotting meat.
Methods for preparing vegetables:
- All ingredients go into the pan whole, not crushed.
- Onions, tomatoes, potatoes are cut, peppers and carrots are sent whole to the dish.
You need to choose a convenient cooking method, take into account the shape of the plates and the situation at the table. Cutting all the ingredients except potatoes is very convenient. You can always separate whole large tubers on a plate. This method requires serving the potatoes separately from the broth. The components cool down in this case, so you have to keep them in a cauldron and put them on a plate one by one.
Beef shurpa, the recipe for which is used in Uzbek cuisine, is prepared for the sake of broth; all the ingredients make it as tasty and rich as possible.
Products are not removed from other first courses; they are all consumed at the same time. Housewives prefer to chop all the ingredients and serve immediately with broth. Boiled meat is easily separated from the bones, cut into small pieces, and filtered.
Standard set of vegetables
Standard set of vegetables:
- Onion.
- Potato.
- Carrot.
- Bell pepper.
- Tomatoes.
Eggplants and cauliflower are also added to shurpa. The recipe can be transformed in any way, since it depends on the preferences of the cook.
Standard set of spices:
- Khmeli-suneli.
- Coriander.
- Zira.
- Chhabra.
Potatoes are often cut into large pieces, peppers, onions and carrots are chopped into half rings. Some people put the meat and all the ingredients in boiling water, while other cooks like crispy beef and sautéed vegetables. They first fry the meat and vegetables separately, then pour water over everything.
Shurpa is a traditional dish of Uzbek cuisine that is prepared all over the world. Each country uses its own set of seasonings and ingredients. The sequence of preparation steps may vary. It is recommended to fry the meat in rendered fat, then add water and prepare the broth.
Vegetables must be fried if there is a lot of fat in the dish. Lamb and vegetables, cut into large pieces, are used in original Uzbek recipes. An average carrot is divided into 4-6 parts. It is recommended to use fresh ingredients; after long-term storage, the products quickly boil over, so the dish becomes less rich and becomes cloudy.
It is recommended to try the broth half an hour before cooking. Hot peppers can crack and release their contents into the food, making it unbearably spicy. In order not to spoil the dish, you need to remove the pepper from the cauldron. It is necessary to monitor the spiciness of the stew if children eat the shurpa. Not every baby can tolerate hot spices well.
Fans of cumin and coriander also reduce the amount of these seasonings. It is recommended to remove the skin from the tomatoes before placing them in the cauldron. You can throw the potatoes in there whole, but the food will take longer to cook, so add water when the frying is still damp so that the ingredients don’t overcook. Turnips can be used instead of potatoes, but this root vegetable is removed after preparing the stew.
Adviсe:
- The meat of young calves cooks faster, is tender, soft, and has a pleasant taste. A mixture of beef, lamb and pork is used. Some cooks use poultry and fish.
- You can add any vegetables to taste, cut into large pieces.
- Rarely are pasta and noodles added, which give a thick broth. This dish is cooked over low heat so that the vegetables do not remain hard.
It is better to add garlic before serving; in boiling water it loses its properties and smell. A tablespoon of beer or vodka is added to 1 liter of water when cooking over an open fire.
Cooking features
If you think that by putting meat and vegetables in a pan, filling them with water and putting them on the fire for an hour or two, you will get the famous shurpa, then you are deeply mistaken. The technology for preparing a popular Asian dish has many subtleties, without knowledge of which it is problematic to obtain the expected result. Only by taking into account several important points can a cook count on getting real shurpa: thick, rich, aromatic.
- It is best to choose beef on the bone for shurpa; it will produce a richer and more aromatic broth. However, sometimes before preparing a dish it is necessary to cut it into portions or cut the finished meat after, having first separated it from the bones.
- The meat of a young calf is more tender and cooks faster compared to the meat of an adult bull.
- For shurpa, it is preferable to use fresh or chilled meat. If you plan to cook soup from frozen beef, give it the opportunity to thaw in natural conditions without exposing it to sudden temperature changes. Trying to speed up the process with warm water or a microwave will result in the meat becoming dry.
- It is customary to chop vegetables for shurpa coarsely so that during the long simmering process they do not turn into a shapeless mass. Only the onion is often thinly sliced so that it is completely or almost completely dissolved in the soup.
- When shurpa is cooked over a fire, the fire is maintained only until the liquid in the cauldron begins to boil. After this, the fire is extinguished, and the products in the cauldron are simmered on coals, not allowing them to flare up.
- The cooking time for shurpa in beef broth depends on the volume of the cauldron and the method of preparing it. This process usually takes about 2 hours. If you are going to make this dish outdoors, the first step is to light a fire, and then move on to other things, including preparing the food.
Classic beef shurpa recipe
Beef shurpa, the recipe for which contains classic ingredients, is the first dish that is eaten at the beginning of the lunch meal. One plate is sometimes enough to fill you up completely.
Classic beef shurpa recipe
Components:
- Beef with bone - 800 g.
- Potatoes - 800 g.
- Carrots - 200 g.
- Onion - 2 pcs.
- Bell pepper - 2 pcs.
- Bay leaf.
- Salt.
- Spices.
- Greenery.
Preparation:
- The meat is washed, cleaned, dried, and cut into portions.
- Add water and cook until completely cooked. The bones are removed or left in the pan to make the broth rich.
- The carrots are cut into cubes and placed in a pan.
- Bell peppers are peeled, crushed or added to the dish in large pieces.
- The potatoes are cut into cubes, placed in a pan, and cooked until tender.
- 10 minutes before cooking, add onion, salt and bay leaf.
- Seasonings are used to taste.
- Chopped greens are added for decoration after cooking or poured into the dish 5 minutes before cooking so that the smell is transferred to the shurpa.
The dish is consumed hot, you can add crushed garlic and wait a few minutes. Only then start eating.
Beef shurpa in Uzbek style
Ingredients:
- Beef bones, ribs, meat - 300 g each.
- Potatoes - 6 pcs.
- Onion - 4 pcs.
- Sweet pepper - 2 pcs.
- Carrots - 3 pcs.
- Peas - 150 g.
- Spices.
- Greenery.
Beef shurpa in Uzbek style
Preparation:
- The meat is washed, filled with water, and cooked.
- Add bay leaf and salt.
- After boiling, remove the film and cook the broth for another 1 hour.
- While the decoction is being prepared, you can work on the remaining ingredients. The peas are washed, filled with water and soaked for about 1 hour.
- Vegetables are washed, peeled, and chopped into convenient pieces.
- The peas are poured into the pan and cooked for another 20 minutes.
- Onions and carrots are added to the pan, after 15 minutes add potatoes, sweet peppers and seasoning to taste.
- The soup is cooked for another 5 minutes after everything is cooked.
Ingredients for the 2nd method of preparing shurpa in Uzbek:
- Carrots - 2 pcs.
- Nukhat – 120 g.
- Sunflower oil - 70 ml.
- Bell pepper - 2 pcs.
- Beef – 500 g.
- Tomatoes 2 pcs.
- Bay leaves.
- Onions – 2 pcs.
- Potatoes – 7 pieces.
Beef shurpa, Uzbek recipe:
- The onion is peeled and cut into thin half rings.
- The oil is heated in a saucepan, the onion is poured into it and fried.
- The meat is washed, excess fat is removed, the flesh is cut into pieces and added to the onion, browned on all sides.
- The carrots are washed, cut into slices, and placed in a saucepan.
- Nukhat is added along with carrots. It is pre-soaked for at least 8 hours, or better all night. Then the water is drained and the peas are washed in clean water. If you take canned nukhat, you don’t need to soak it.
- The ingredients are salted and filled with water.
- After boiling, the foam is removed and the soup is cooked for another 1 hour.
- The potatoes are peeled, cut into large cubes, and added to the broth.
- The tomatoes are washed, peeled and cut into cubes.
- The grains are removed from the bell pepper, the vegetables are cut into large pieces and added to the pan along with the potatoes.
- The 2nd onion goes into the pan 10 minutes before the end of cooking.
- The fire is turned off, the shurpa is infused.
To peel tomatoes, you can place them in boiling water or pour them over. Uzbek shurpa is seasoned with herbs and served hot for lunch.
From pork
To cook shurpa tasty and satisfying, it is better to take meat with fat. You can cook it over a fire outside or at home.
Ingredients:
- Pork with fat – 1.5 kg.
- Sweet pepper – 2 pcs.
- Tomatoes – 3 pcs.
- Garlic – 1 head
- Onions – 1 pc.
- Carrots – 2 pcs.
- Potatoes – 3-5 pcs.
- Dill – 1 bunch
- Salt - to taste
- Coriander – 5g
- Water
- Preparation time 10-20 minutes
Cooking time 1.5 – 2.5 hours.
KBJU (per 100 g) – 195 kcal.
Step-by-step recipe with photos
In order to cook shurpa over a fire in a cauldron, you must first prepare everything correctly.
- Cut the meat into small pieces. Peel the onion and chop into rings. Peel the carrots and cut into strips. Remove the core from the bell pepper and cut into cubes. Cut the tomatoes into large cubes. The potatoes should be peeled and also cut into large strips. Cut the head of garlic into small slices. We cut the greens in the same way.
- Heat up the cauldron and add pieces of meat. No oil needed! We will cook with cut lard. There is no need to add salt yet either. Fry the pieces until golden brown.
- Add carrots and onions. Allow a few 5 minutes for the vegetables to cook a little.
- Add garlic, salt and coriander. Then bell pepper. Then add potatoes and tomatoes. Mix everything and fill with water. Salt and wait about 1.5 hours. Cook over medium heat.
- Finally, season with herbs and wait another 15-20 minutes.
- Shurpa is ready. Can be brought to the table. Don't forget to garnish with herbs or chili pepper. Bon appetit!
Recommendation: “If your recipe calls for chickpeas, it’s best to soak them overnight.”
Beef shurpa soup with tomato paste
Ingredients:
- Beef with bones – 1 kg.
- Onion – 2 pcs.
- 4 large potatoes.
- 3 carrots.
- Tomato paste – 3 tbsp. l.
- Sunflower or olive oil.
- Bell pepper.
- Garlic – 2 cloves.
- Bay leaf.
- Salt, cumin, cilantro, other seasonings.
Beef shurpa soup with tomato paste
Beef shurpa, recipe with tomato paste:
- The meat is separated from the bones to make a rich broth, add water, and cook for 45-60 minutes.
- Vegetables are peeled and chopped. Potatoes are cut into large pieces, carrots are divided into long slices. The onion is cut into half rings, the pepper is cleared of entrails and chopped into cubes.
- Carrots, peppers and onions are sautéed for 2-3 minutes, mixed with tomato paste, garlic and spices to taste, and simmered for another 5 minutes.
- The sauteing is poured into a pan with boiled meat, the ingredients are boiled for 10 minutes so that the beef absorbs the taste of the vegetables.
- Add potatoes, cook for 15 minutes, add salt to the soup.
- The bay leaf and seasonings are placed in the pan, the gas is turned off, and the dish is infused for several minutes.
Shurpa is served with lemon or herbs.
Secrets and little tips
To make the shurpa tasty and beautiful the first time, or if you want to diversify the standard recipe, use these small tips:
garlic is not the main component of shurpa; you can cook the soup without it; to obtain a more pronounced taste, you can pass the spice through a press before adding it to the dish; tomato paste will improve the color and consistency of the dish; you can add it before starting to stew the vegetables; wine or apple cider vinegar added at the end of cooking will make the dish more sour; sour or sweet and sour apples can be added at the time of stewing peppers and tomatoes; if you add a little quince while stewing vegetables, the shurpa will get an incredible aroma, unlike anything else
But it should be remembered that quince is added along with potatoes, since it takes longer to cook than apples; It is important to remove the foam, otherwise the soup will turn out gray and cloudy; this is a key step in preparing the “correct” shurpa!. Try it, it’s very tasty, I’ve never been indifferent
Bon appetit!
Try it, it’s very tasty, I’ve never been indifferent. Bon appetit!
Armenian beef shurpa recipe
Ingredients:
- Beef on the bone – 0.5 kg.
- Potatoes – 1 kg.
- Carrots – 200 g.
- Onions – 200 g.
- Tomato paste – 40 ml.
- Sunflower oil.
- Salt and spices.
- Water.
- Greenery.
Armenian beef shurpa recipe
Preparation:
- The beef is cleaned, washed, dried, filled with water and boiled. The foam is removed after boiling, and the heat is set to low. The meat broth is cooked for 1.5 hours, while the pan is covered with a lid.
- The meat is removed from the pan and cooled.
- The potatoes are peeled and chopped into cubes or pieces the size of which matches the meat.
- The onion is crushed into cubes or cut into half rings.
- The carrots are peeled, grated or cut into strips.
- The oil is heated in a cauldron or pan with a thick bottom, then the meat is placed there.
- Onions and carrots are fried and stirred for 10 minutes.
- The ingredients are mixed with tomato paste and simmered for 5 minutes.
- Everything is filled with water.
- The potatoes go into the pan after boiling.
- Armenian beef shurpa is cooked over low heat for 20-25 minutes until the potatoes soften.
- The greens are chopped and poured into the pan at the very end.
- Salt and seasonings are added to taste, the dish is cooked for another 5 minutes, then infused.
Fresh tomatoes can be used instead of tomato paste.
Shurpa with beef in Tatar style
Products:
- Beef – 700 g.
- Onion – 2 pcs.
- Carrots – 2 pcs.
- Potatoes – 600 g.
- Bell pepper – 150 g.
- Tomatoes – 150 g.
- Sunflower oil.
- Spices.
- Water.
- Greenery.
Shurpa with beef in Tatar style
Preparation:
- The meat is washed, wiped with a napkin, and cut into portions.
- The potatoes are peeled and cut into 4 parts.
- The carrots are peeled and cut into half circles or long thin slices.
- The onion is cut into large cubes.
- The pepper is peeled and cut into squares or half rings.
- The skin is removed from the tomatoes, the pulp is cut into large slices.
- The meat is fried in sunflower oil and filled with water.
- Cook over low heat, add chopped potatoes to the pan.
- The remaining ingredients are added to the dish after 15 minutes.
- The shurpa is salted, seasoned to taste, cooked for 15 minutes, then covered with a lid and infused.
Greens are added when serving.
Cooking in a cauldron
Before cooking shurpa in a cauldron, you need to light a fire or turn on the burner. The container is heated before adding fat or oil. Large pieces of meat are sent there and stirred during cooking, fried until golden brown. Pleasant and rich beef shurpa is prepared in an open-air cauldron.
Ingredients:
- Beef – 1.5 kg.
- Potatoes - 1 kg.
- Tomatoes - 1.5 kg.
- 1 onion.
- Carrots - 500 g.
- Bell pepper -2 pcs.
- 1 head of garlic.
- Parsley dill.
- Paprika.
- Coriander and other spices.
- Vegetable oil.
Cooking in a cauldron
Preparation:
- The fireplace is lit, the cauldron is heating up.
- Vegetable oil is poured and spread evenly over the surface.
- The beef is separated from the bones, cut into small pieces, and placed in a cauldron.
- The onion is cut into half rings and added to the meat, fried until transparent.
- The carrots are chopped into half circles, placed in a cauldron, and mixed with other ingredients.
- Bell peppers and tomatoes are cut into cubes and sent to the cauldron after a few minutes.
- Spices are added after preparing the main ingredients.
- The potatoes are cut into large pieces and sent to the cauldron last.
- All ingredients are poured with water, shurpa is cooked for 1 hour.
- Garlic is added and the dish is infused.
Shurpa is served hot.
Cooking shurpa with beef and chickpeas takes a lot of time. Special Asian peas add charm to the dish, making it richer and tastier. Canned foods reduce cooking time. Therefore, canned beans, tomato paste and other vegetables are used. Chickpeas can be added to the standard set of ingredients for Uzbek shurpa.
Recipe for making shurpa in a cauldron:
- The chickpeas are soaked for 1 day and boiled for 3 hours.
- Fat tail fat along with meat is fried in a cauldron, filled with water, and soaked chickpeas are added.
- The chopped vegetables are sent to the cauldron, the water boils, and the dish simmers for a long time.
The broth is salted, herbs are added, the shurpa is infused and poured into plates.
Shurpa - a classic recipe over a fire in a cauldron
In fact, shurpa is called the base. Namely, broth with meat. And then, depending on the ingredients and meat, a unique name for the dish is obtained. It seems complicated and everything is simple at the same time. Therefore, in order not to complicate the recipe, I decided to prepare classic shurpa, without adding unnecessary seasonings. Moreover, respected Uzbek culinary specialists recommended this way... Don’t be wise, and you will have real shurpa!
Ingredients in exact order of preparation:
- Clean water (recommended from a spring, but where can you find it? But bottled water is easy) – 7 liters
- Beef or Lamb on the bone (brisket + long bones to give a good fat) – 2 kg.
- Chickpeas – 200 grams (pre-soaked overnight. Didn’t use it in the recipe, since shurpa can be cooked without chickpeas)
- Onions – 3 heads (cut into half rings, the thickness of a match)
- Salt - a handful
- Carrots – 2 pieces (in large rings, see photo)
- Potatoes – 8-10 pieces (can be whole or halved. I send whole)
- Tomatoes – 4 jokes (4 slices each)
- Coriander and pepper to taste (one teaspoon each)
- Hot capsicum - 2 peppercorns (make sure there are no cracks, whole. Do not peel!)
- Bell pepper – 2 jokes (cut into 6 slices each)
- Red onion – 2 heads (if there is no red, it’s not critical. Add another onion at the end)
- Greens – Cilantro, Dill, Green onions. (In Uzbek recipes they also add Raykhon (Basil - green or purple), and sometimes Parsley. I did without the last two)
Option for cooking over a fire
Ingredients:
- Meat - 2 kg.
- 3 onions.
- 3 potatoes.
- Carrots – 1 pc.
- 4 tomatoes.
- 2 bell peppers.
- 2 cloves of garlic.
- Dill, parsley.
- Seasonings to taste.
Preparation:
- The meat is removed from the bones, placed in a cauldron, fried in sunflower oil until golden brown, and filled with water.
- Onions and carrots are peeled, cut into cubes, added to the meat, the dish is salted and peppered.
- The bones are sent to the cauldron.
- Next is the line of diced tomatoes.
- The potatoes are peeled, cut into cubes, and placed in a cauldron.
- Fans of spicy soup can add a little chili.
- Sweet pepper and garlic are sent to the cauldron.
- The greens are finely chopped and placed in a cauldron.
Beef shurpa over a fire will be ready in about 1.5 hours. You need to let it brew.
Multicooker recipe
Ingredients:
- Ribs – 300 g.
- Tubular bones - 300 g.
- Meat – 300 g.
- Onion – 3 pcs.
- 5 potatoes.
- 2 sweet peppers.
- 3 cloves of garlic.
- 3 carrots.
- A can of canned beans.
- Dill and parsley.
- Seasoning to taste.
Multicooker recipe
Preparation:
- Meat and bones are washed under the tap and dried. The beef goes into the slow cooker in one piece, not chopped.
- The water is salted, bay leaf and onion are added.
- The soup cooking mode in the multicooker is turned on for 10 minutes.
- Then the equipment is switched to extinguishing mode for 60 minutes.
- Potatoes and carrots are peeled, cut or grated.
- Large carrots go into the slow cooker when the water boils, potatoes are added after 15 minutes.
- Chopped sweet pepper is added after 10-15 minutes. Shurpa is cooked until the meat is cooked.
- The beans go into the slow cooker at the very end, salt and spices are added, and the dish is cooked for another 10 minutes.
- The meat is pulled out, chopped, and sent back.
Before serving, shurpa is decorated with herbs and seasoned with garlic. To prepare shurpa with peas you will need the same set of ingredients, you can add turnips.
Instructions:
- The meat is cleaned under running water, a large piece of beef is cut into several pieces.
- The whole onion goes into the slow cooker.
- The “soup” mode is turned on for 20 minutes, the foam is removed and the extinguishing program is set for 1.5 hours.
- Vegetables are washed, chopped, 2 onions and a carrot are cut into half rings.
- Sauteed carrots and onions are made and added to the broth.
- The dish is salted and cooked for 20 minutes, add bell pepper.
- Add whole turnips, peeled.
- The potatoes are chopped and added to the shurpa, cooked for another 20 minutes.
- Fresh herbs are chopped and sent to the slow cooker 15 minutes before cooking.
You need to wait until the dish is infused and serve it on the table. Turnips are pulled out if used in a beef shurpa recipe; they make dishes more aromatic and tastier. You can use a piece of white cabbage instead.
Initial preparations
First of all, let us remind you that the basis of any shurpa is a rich meat broth, so the most important thing in our business is to choose the freshest possible meat.
Don’t also forget that shurpa should contain a lot of vegetables. And no less fresh than meat
Therefore, when traveling around a store or market, pay attention to such characteristics as color, smell, appearance and, of course, consistency
Some shurpa recipes allow the use of frozen or canned vegetables
But here it is important to remember that canned food does not require long-term heat treatment, so they can be thrown into the soup last
Spices are also an important part of shurpa. Here it is better not to fill in everything you find at hand, but to follow a specific recipe
After all, this is how you can achieve the optimal taste of a traditional dish.
Photo pixabay.com