What products do we need for shurpa?
First, the meat. You can take a bird, you can take beef, best of all, of course, lamb. But if we take meat not from poultry, but from four-legged cattle, then not all meat is suitable for us for shurpa. Listen to what Ibn-Sino says about meat: “The best meat and the most digestible is the meat that lies deep, near the bone ... Excellent varieties of meat are sheep meat, because it is hot, sparse, as well as the meat of young goats and calves » The meat from the hip joint, after the pulp has been removed from the back, is perfect for shurpa due to the fact that it will give us a good, strong broth. The ribs and brisket will serve for our enjoyment - even though they have a little meat on them, but it is extremely tasty. In order for the shurpa to become a full-fledged, hearty lunch, let's take the meat from the back - what is called the loin. We will take one measure of meat, or even one and a half, depending on the circumstances.
Separately, we need a little fat. Good in the soup will be internal fat, from the omentum. The fat enveloping the kidneys, which is fragile and refractory, will not fit in any other dish better than in shurpa. In extreme cases, if both are missing, then you can take the fat covering the back and upper part of the ribs of the ram. The same fat that ripened and ripened under the sun, which warmed up best of all.
We need two types of onions. There are many yellow, red, sharp, angry onions from onions, from which tears flow so easily and abundantly - one measure. And a little from the white onion, lettuce, which can be replaced with purple (Crimean) onions or leeks - such onions that you can eat raw and not frown - a quarter of a measure. Carrots and turnips are those two ancient vegetables that have been growing in Central Asia since ancient times and have dispersed from here all over the world. Half measure.
Bell peppers of different colors, tomatoes - a quarter of a measure, and if you can’t do without it, then potatoes - half a measure. Hot chilli pepper - optional.
Herbs: cilantro, parsley, raikhon and zhambul.
Spices: zira and coriander.
And most importantly - very good water, the purest and most delicious that you can get in your area.
You know, many do not attach importance to the water in which we cook soups. And it seems to me that the quality of water, sometimes, affects the taste of the finished dish more than the presence or absence of certain components. If very clean water is taken for cooking meat, then the foam leaves white, light during cooking, and if ordinary tap water is taken, that is, not too well purified, and even chlorinated, then the foam rises brownish-greenish, and the broth has an aftertaste , from which, you understand, it is impossible to get rid of.
Pour cold water into a cauldron, put all the meat into it and make a fire. We wait for the boil, straighten the fire so that it does not boil too violently and add a pinch of salt to the cauldron.
In general, when cooking meat, it should be salted towards the very end, because salt promotes the release of juices from it. If still raw meat is heavily salted, then during cooking everything that was in it will come out of it, and the meat itself will remain grassy and tasteless. But a pinch of salt helps to release the foam quickly and completely, otherwise the foam will stand out for a very long time and, most likely, you will not be able to collect it completely, as a result of which the broth will look untidy and cloudy.
Generally speaking, if you cook as expected, then at this time one or two logs from fruit trees should slowly burn under the cauldron with a pleasant smell of smoke. At this time, the youngest daughter-in-law in the house is sent to the cauldron, and in men's companies (if men gathered in the teahouse cook shurpa), the youngest guy is sent. Do you know why? The cook must take a ladle, scoop up shurpa, raise the ladle high above the cauldron and pour the broth back in a thin stream. The meaning of this action, apparently, is to prevent the shurpa from boiling too much, despite the good heat under the cauldron and the constant saturation of the broth with air bubbles, which should help soften the meat being cooked.
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