🇺🇿 Uzbekistan, 🇹🇯 Tajikistan, and 🇰🇿 Kazakhstan · Central Asia (Uzbek and Tajik shurpa/shurbo; Kazakh sorpa)
ShurpaCentral Asian lamb soup
A meat-and-vegetable soup of Central Asia, made from lamb or beef on the bone with onion, carrot, potato and tomato, and served hot in a bowl; the name is used across the region for the first-course meat broth.
Origin and history
Shurpa is eaten throughout Central Asia, where one word (shurpa, shurbo, shorpo, sorpo) names a meat soup in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan. Uzbek food guides call it the country's most popular soup, with dozens of versions, and describe lamb or beef with potatoes, carrots and peppers simmered in broth, often over an open fire. In Tajikistan it is one of the most common dishes.
Make it at home
- Makes
- 6 servings
- Total time
- 2 h
- Hands-on
- 30 min
Ingredients
- 1 kg2.2 lb lamb on the bone (shoulder, shank or ribs), cut in large chunks; beef on the bone also works
- 2.5 l2.5 qt cold water
- 2 large onions, one left in thick half-rings, one sliced
- 3 carrots, peeled, cut in thick rounds or large pieces
- 3 medium potatoes, peeled, halved or quartered
- 3 ripe tomatoes, quartered
- 1 sweet bell pepper, seeded, in large strips
- 1 tsp cumin seeds, lightly crushed
- 1 tsp coriander seeds, lightly crushed; optional
- 1 small head garlic, left whole, optional
- 1 large bunch cilantro, dill and parsley, coarsely chopped
- salt and black pepper, to taste
Method
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1. Rinse the meat and put it in a heavy pot or Dutch oven with the cold water.
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2. Bring to a boil over high heat and skim the grey foam for the first 10 minutes.
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3. Lower to a gentle simmer (the surface should barely move), add one onion, the cumin, the coriander and a good pinch of salt, and cook for 1 hour.
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4. Add the carrots, the second onion, the whole garlic head and the pepper strips, and simmer for 15 minutes.
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5. Add the potatoes and tomatoes and simmer for 25 to 30 minutes more, until the potatoes are soft and the meat comes away from the bone.
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6. Taste the broth and correct the salt; add black pepper.
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7. Stir in half the herbs, switch off the heat and let the soup rest, covered, for 10 minutes.
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8. Serve in deep bowls with a piece of meat and a few large vegetable pieces in each, scattered with the rest of the herbs, with flatbread on the side.
Notes
- Shurpa is a family of dishes rather than one fixed recipe: Uzbek guides list shurpa-chaban (meat, potato, onion, tomato), shurpa-mash (mutton with mung beans), sholgom-shurpa (mutton with turnip), kiyma-shurpa (with meatballs) and others, and say there are dozens of recipes. This is the common everyday form: big pieces of meat and vegetables in a clear, rich broth.
- The vegetables are left in large pieces and served with the meat; cut them smaller if you want a spoon soup.
- Some recipes fry the onion (and garlic) in fat first for a darker broth; others, like this one, simply simmer everything for a clear one. The pepper, garlic and coriander are optional extras that some cooks add.
- The same word is used across the region: in Tajikistan shurbo simply means soup, and the traditional version has potatoes, carrots and chunks of meat and fat; in Kazakhstan sorpo (also called shorpo or shurpa) is the broth left from cooking the lamb for beshbarmak, served in bowls with chopped meat.
- Beef on the bone works as well as lamb; the bones matter more than the cut. Leftover soup is better the next day; keep it 3 days in the fridge.
Adapted from Advantour, Uzbek soups (shurpa varieties), Orexca, Uzbek soups guide, and Russian-language home recipe for lamb shurpa (Teletype).
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