Uzbek first courses: lagman, shurpa, mastava, kovurma, kurtop

Shurpa, also known as shurvo or shorvo, chorpa or sorpa, is a thick, very rich soup. It helps saturate and restore the body.

There is a canonical recipe for this soup. Uzbek shurpa is a very popular dish. Accordingly, given its national character, in every home of Uzbekistan there is another “exceptionally correct” recipe, which is the pride of the housewife and changes depending on the traditions of the family and the personal preferences of the household.

There are only two “official” varieties of the dish known - kovurma-shurpa and kainatma-shurpa. Each type has its own recipe. The second option does not involve pre-frying the lamb, which makes the dish lighter and more dietary. All ingredients are simply boiled in a certain sequence.

Lamb shurpa in Uzbek style

Lamb shurpa is called kaurma in Uzbek. It is prepared in an interesting way, and the cooking process itself resembles a beautiful ritual. You will need:

meat (lamb) - half a kilo;
carrots - 200 gr.;
onion - 100 gr.;
sweet pepper - 200 gr.;
potatoes - 4 pcs.;
tomato puree or paste - tbsp. spoon;
garlic - a couple of cloves;
vegetable oil - 3 tbsp. spoons;
bay leaf - a couple of pieces;
salt - 2 small spoons;
ground black pepper - half a teaspoon;
spicy herbs (cumin, cilantro, marjoram) - half a spoon;
fresh herbs - a few sprigs (to taste).

A step-by-step recipe for lamb shurpa, which is included in many books of Uzbek national cuisine, will help you in cooking:

In a suitable saucepan, pour the meat from which the lamb shurpa will be prepared with a liter of cool temperature water.
Peel the skin of the onion. Bring the water with the meat to a boil, do not forget to remove the resulting foam from the surface of the future broth. Throw the whole onion into the water and add bay leaves. Cover the broth with a lid and leave on the fire for about an hour. This time will be enough to prepare a rich base for shurpa.
Peel the remaining onion and cut into strips or, if desired, into half rings. Fry it in a spoon of vegetable oil in a frying pan. Fry for 7 minutes, as soon as the onion becomes transparent, remove the pan from the heat and leave to cool.
Peel all the carrots, wash them and grate them on a medium grater.
Remove the meat from the broth and cut into medium pieces. After that, send it to the frying pan, preheating a spoonful of vegetable oil in it. Fry the lamb evenly until nicely golden brown.
Add onion, grated carrots and tomato paste to the meat. Simmer the entire mixture for about 5-7 minutes over low heat.
Homemade lamb shurpa is impossible without adding potatoes. It needs to be peeled, washed and cut into medium slices.
Place the roasted meat and vegetables into the desired saucepan, pour in the prepared broth and bring to a boil.
Add chopped potatoes to the soup and continue to simmer over low heat. Throw in salt, pepper and all your favorite herbs. After this, lamb shurpa is prepared at home for 15 minutes.
During this time, cut the sweet bell pepper into thin strips and peel the garlic.
5 minutes before the end of cooking, add bell pepper and squeeze out the garlic. Chop the greens.

Homemade lamb shurpa is ready. It should be served exclusively hot, after seasoning each plate with fresh herbs.

Cooking features

Uzbek shurpa comes in two types: kaurma (fried) and kainatma (boiled). They differ in cooking technology. In the first case, vegetables, and sometimes meat, are first fried, then poured with broth and stewed until cooked. The broth is prepared separately. In the second case, the meat is boiled, then raw vegetables are added to the broth and simmered over low heat until fully cooked. The second option is preferable for those who care about their health.

Recipes for fried and boiled shurpa are also different. The dish often includes chickpeas (chickpeas), garlic, quince, and seasonal vegetables, but these ingredients are not mandatory. The recipe can also leave its mark on the cooking technology, but its general principles will remain unchanged.

There should be a lot of meat in the shurpa, but the broth also needs to be rich. This is achieved by using meat from different parts of the lamb.
The meat of a young lamb will be more tender than an old animal. Its specific aroma will be less pronounced.
Vegetables are cut into large pieces for shurpa, since the technology of preparing the dish involves cooking them over a fire for a long time.
In Uzbekistan, a cauldron is used to prepare shurpa. It can be replaced with a pan with thick walls and bottom. The main thing is that the dishes retain heat well: the food should be cooked by simmering in its own juice, which is why the dish turns out especially tasty and aromatic.
If the recipe calls for chickpeas, soak them in cool water beforehand. It must lie in it for at least 6 hours. During this time, it will not only soften, but also swell, increasing in volume by 2-3 times, so it will be easier to calculate how much to add to the soup.
After steeping, the shurpa becomes tastier. After bringing the ingredients to readiness, the soup is infused for some time or simmered under a lid over very low heat.

If you want to serve shurpa as is customary in Uzbekistan, put the vegetables in one bowl, pour the broth into another, sprinkle everything with herbs, and serve the flatbread separately.

Lamb shurpa on fire

When it’s sunny, but no longer very warm autumn, you really want to pamper yourself and your loved ones with a tasty and satisfying dish. Lamb shurpa in a cauldron, cooked in the fresh air, can be such a feast for the stomach. Prepare in advance, as cooking lamb shurpa over an open fire takes a long time, but the process itself will definitely captivate you. Take:

lamb ribs - 1 kg 200 gr.;
lamb fat (or chicken) - 500 gr.;
potatoes - 4 large pieces;
onions - a couple;
sweet pepper - 4 pcs. (preferably different colors);
carrots - a couple;
salt, pepper, spices (to your taste);
greens (basil, cilantro and dill);
tomatoes - 7 pcs.;
eggplants - 3 pcs.

Lamb shurpa in a cauldron is prepared according to the following instructions:

Cut the lamb or chicken fat into small pieces, pour it into a cauldron and place on an open fire. The fat should all melt away.
Once all the fat has rendered, throw in the meat. Be careful as hot fat may splatter and burn your skin. Leave the ribs to fry until golden brown.
As soon as the meat has acquired a beautiful shade, fill it with water. For this amount of meat you will need 5 liters of water. Cover the cauldron with a lid and leave on the fire until the broth boils.
As soon as the homemade lamb shurpa has boiled in the cauldron, slightly put out the fire, open the lid and add salt to the soup to taste. After that, cover it again and leave to cook until done for another 45-50 minutes.
When the broth is finished cooking, it's time to start cooking the vegetables. Cut potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, eggplants, peppers, and onions into large pieces into 4-6 pieces.
Add all vegetables to the broth and cook until they are ready for another 10 minutes.
At the end of cooking the vegetables, coarsely chop the greens and pour them into the cauldron. After this, you can add your favorite spices and herbs. Close the cauldron with a lid and let it simmer for the last 15 minutes.

Tip: check the readiness of the shurpa by the degree of cooking of the carrots and potatoes, because they take longer to cook than all other vegetables.
Tip: salt the meat only after the broth boils, otherwise it will lose its fat content and juiciness.

Tasty and rich lamb shurpa is ready. Prepared with all your heart and soul at home, it will undoubtedly gather close friends around the big table.

Ingredients

The recipe requires the preparation of the following products:

lamb – 500 g;
potatoes – 200 g;
onion – 300 g;
carrots – 200 g;
tomatoes – 200 g;
red sweet pepper – 200 g;
salt;
water - no more than 2 liters;
spices

Meat

Uzbek shurpa is made from lamb. Take ribs or fillet. The freshness of the lamb is important: the older the lamb, the more specific the smell of its meat.

A distinctive feature of a good piece is its appearance. The surface of the lamb should be bright red, and the fat streaks should be white. If the overall tone of the piece is dark - the fat is yellowish, and the meat has a brownish coating - there is no need to take it.

Tomato

Fresh, peeled tomatoes are added to the soup. A shallow cross-shaped cut is made at the bottom of the tomato: the knife should only open the skin. The vegetable is doused with boiling water, which weakens the connection between the pulp and the skin of the tomato. The skin is easily removed by hand.

If there are no decent tomatoes, tomato paste is used.

Spices and herbs

Not a single recipe for a traditional oriental dish is complete without spices. This soup requires cumin and black peppercorns.

Greens are required: parsley, cilantro, basil, dill.

Other vegetables

It is allowed to add turnips, as well as large Central Asian peas. It makes mohora-shurpa. Similar peas are called chickpeas or nohut. When cooked, it does not soften completely. Its relative hardness in the finished state is a special chic. The chickpeas are pre-soaked in cool water, and they should be cooked together with lamb meat.

If you use regular peas, they are not soaked. This way the finished peas will retain some of the firmness characteristic of chickpeas.

Cooking technology

The recipe is designed to cook for 2.5 hours.

The result will be Uzbek-style shurpa for 5 servings with a calorie content of 200 kcal per 100 g of product.

Recipe

The meat is washed in running cool water and prepared for cooking. Then it is cut into medium-sized pieces.
Cold water is poured into the pan, although the original method of cooking is exclusively in a cauldron.
Pieces of lamb and, if you used ribs, then bones are sent into the dish.
A strong fire turns on.
When the water boils, skim off the foam that forms on the surface. To ensure the purity of the broth, it makes sense to repeat the scheme several times: the broth boiled - the foam was removed - the heat was reduced - the dish was stirred - the suspension was removed - the heat was again set to high.
Cooking time for young high-quality lamb is about 1 hour. If the piece turns out to be more “aged”, it will take up to 1.5-2 hours. The meat is cooked over low heat.
The finished meat pieces are removed from the broth. The meat is removed from the bone and cut into neat pieces, then returned to the broth. Gourmets still leave the bone.
While cooking the lamb, it’s worth working on the vegetables. They are cleaned and cut into large pieces. The onion is cut straight into rings, the carrots into circles.
After the meat is cooked, cut up and returned to the pan, prepared vegetables are added there. After adding the soup, simmer over low heat. To prevent the acid contained in tomatoes from preventing the potatoes from reaching full readiness, tomatoes are added at the very end of cooking.

10. When the vegetable filling is almost ready, spices, salt and herbs are added to the soup.

Homemade lamb shurpa in a slow cooker

A multicooker will make it very easy for you to prepare a liquid, flavorful dish. Of course, you won’t feel the slight smoke and smell of burnt logs, but in winter and for residents of urban areas, cooking in a slow cooker is an easy way to enjoy an excellent dish of oriental cuisine. Ingredients:

lamb on the bone - 1 kg;
potatoes - 4 pcs.;
carrots - a couple;
onion (Crimean) - 1 pc.;
sweet bell pepper - 1 pc.;
salt, pepper, herbs for shurpa - to taste;
garlic - a couple of cloves;
any fresh herbs.

Lamb shurpa in an urbanized society with a multicooker is prepared as follows:

Pour 3 liters of cold water into the multicooker bowl, put the meat in it, add a couple of allspice peas and a cut, peeled onion.
Turn on the “soup” mode on the dashboard. Periodically look at the soup, do not miss the moment when you need to remove the foam.
After an hour, salt the broth to taste, add the rest of the vegetables, cut into large pieces and spices. The onion with which the meat was cooked must be removed. Set the “soup” mode again and cook for an hour until done.

Lamb soup should be served hot, sprinkled with chopped garlic and herbs.

Adjarian-style lamb and chickpea shurpa

One of the most interesting and unusual recipes for lamb shurpa. In our country, dishes with the addition of chickpeas are not very common, but just try to prepare an original dish, and it will linger on your table for a long time.

lamb - 1 kg;
chickpeas - a couple of glasses;
lean oil - for frying;
potatoes - 6 pcs.;
onions - 3 pcs.;
garlic head;
tomato - 4 pcs.;
sweet pepper - 3 pcs.;
carrots - 4 pcs.;
cabbage - 1/5 of a medium head.

At home, lamb shurpa is prepared as follows:

Soak the chickpeas in cold water in the evening in a ratio of 1:2.
Place the meat in a saucepan with a thick bottom, pour oil into it and chop one onion. Fry the meat with onions until a crust forms.
Pour boiled water over the fried meat, let everything boil, then add quartered onions and whole garlic to the soup.
Boil for 15 minutes, then add soaked chickpeas (the water has already been drained) and coarsely chopped carrots into the soup being prepared. Leave to simmer on low heat for about an hour.
After an hour, add coarsely chopped vegetables. Everything except potatoes. Let them cook for about half an hour. Taste the broth with meat and vegetables. Salt and add your favorite spices.
After half an hour, put the potatoes, cut into large pieces, into the shurpa.
As soon as the potatoes are cooked, you can add chopped herbs, leave for 5 minutes and turn off the heat.

You will get a rich, beautiful and tasty shurpa soup. Feel free to pour into plates and taste.

Lamb shurpa has a special mission. It brings people together and is such a warm and family dish that you will definitely want to cook it with your family and have a great time in good company.

Soups of Uzbek cuisine

Uzbek soup is a collective concept. There are many soups in the national cuisine of Uzbekistan:

broth with dumplings;
rice milk soups (shirkhurda);
flour stew, similar to our okroshka - chalop, but without meat and with katyk, not kvass.

Basically, Uzbek soup is a meat dish made from lamb or beef, less often from horse meat and chicken. Chicken meat is not the most popular product in Uzbekistan.

Khorezm and Karakalpakstan have their own cuisine and traditions. For example, fish broth soup and surprisingly small dumplings.

As a rule, first courses in Uzbekistan are hearty and thick. There are many cooking recipes: according to chefs, at least 80. And each region uses its own cooking technology.

Nowadays, gastronomic tours around Uzbekistan are becoming popular - an opportunity to try national food and learn the peculiarities of cooking in different regions of the country and participate in master classes.

Mashkhurda with beef

Mashkhurda is a famous Uzbek rich soup, the national dish of Uzbekistan. But they believe that it came from China. The soup is thick: it turns out something between the first course and the second. Mashkhurda is usually eaten in the cold season, before hard work, to gain strength.

According to the traditional recipe, it always contains rice and mung beans (green beans). Their combination gives an extraordinary taste. The ingredients are fried in a cauldron in lamb tail fat (dumba), even if the dish is prepared from beef. Start cooking in the morning so that it can brew in the evening.

First, the ingredients are fried in a certain sequence. Then water is added, in which the components continue to simmer. At the end, add fresh herbs and katyk.

Real mashkhurda is prepared in Tashkent and in the Bostanlyk region. Both in expensive restaurants and in teahouses.

In tourist areas (Samarkand, Bukhara, Khiva), at the request of guests, the fat content of the dish is reduced.

But in Bukhara cuisine they prefer shurpa, various stews with rice and dough, and dumplings in broth.

Shurpa with beef and lamb

The famous Uzbek shurpa has dozens of recipes.

Regardless of whether shurpa is prepared from beef or lamb, or whether bone-in meat or ribs are used, the bones should not crumble. For example, lamb bones begin to fall off when the meat is cut incorrectly.

Historically, shurpa is made from lamb. But now they also use beef. For example, for tourists in Bukhara.

The main thing in shurpa soup is the broth. It should be transparent. The potatoes are boiled whole and separately, and placed in the prepared clear broth along with red peppers, carrots and tomatoes. For those who like spicier shurpa, add hot pepper to the broth. But before adding the rest of the vegetables, remove the pepper.

Shurpa is a universal first dish that is considered medicinal. It is prepared both for holidays and on weekdays. For example, in the cities of the Fergana Valley, shurpa is often cooked on Mondays.

Kovurma-shurpa is different in that the ingredients are first fried in a cauldron and then boiled.

Presentation is important. First, meat and vegetables are laid out on a plate, and the broth is poured into separate large bowls (braids). Meat should be eaten with vegetables, and washed down with delicious broth. Nowadays they are deviating from tradition and sometimes soup with all the ingredients is placed in one plate.

Uzbek soup mastava

A bright representative of Uzbek cuisine is mastava. From the point of view of the cooking process, it resembles liquid pilaf. But these dishes differ in taste.

First, fat tail fat with pieces of lamb are fried in a cauldron, then onions, tomatoes, carrots and sometimes potatoes. The fried foods are poured with hot water and continued to boil for 15 minutes. Then add washed rice and spices. The soup is considered ready if the rice is completely cooked.

Sometimes small meatballs made from lamb, a mixture of lamb and beef, are added. After the soup, no one thinks about the second one; tea is served.

In the Fergana Valley they prepare a special mastava with sourness. Either dried cherries or cherry plums are added there, and the meat is chopped finely. Even the first Russian settlers of Fergana wrote about mastava as an excellent soup.