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Hungarian cuisine is unthinkable without lecho. True, there it is usually served as a separate dish, topped with beaten eggs after cooking. Hungarian dishes often include smoked meat products. In European countries, lecho most often serves as a side dish. With us pepper lecho and the housewife rolls the tomato into jars and uses it as a kind of winter salad.
And there are so many variations of this wonderful dish! Everyone prepares lecho in their own way; there is simply no exact recipe. It is believed that it is necessary to use sweet peppers, onions and tomatoes. They are cut into pieces, spices, vinegar, vegetable oil are added, stewed and rolled into jars. But there may be options, since there are recipes in which only pepper is present among vegetables. In this article we will tell you how to cook lecho for the winter and give a traditional Hungarian recipe for a hot snack.
Lecho in Hungarian
Real Hungarian lecho is a hot dish. It’s probably wrong to give recipes for twists without paying attention to a very tasty and easy-to-prepare dish.
Required Products
To prepare this delicious dish, you need to take only fresh, high-quality vegetables, fully ripened, not damaged by diseases or pests. You will need:
- sweet pepper (necessarily red) – 1.5 kg;
- medium-sized ripe tomatoes – 600-700 g;
- medium-sized onion – 2 pcs.;
- smoked bacon - 50 g or fatty smoked brisket - 100 g;
- paprika (seasoning) – 1 teaspoon;
- salt - to taste.
Cooking method
First prepare the vegetables:
- Wash the pepper, remove the stem and seeds, rinse. Cut into strips.
- Wash the tomatoes, scald with boiling water, and place in cold water for a few minutes. Make a cross-shaped cut on the top of the tomato and remove the skin. Cut into quarters, remove the white parts adjacent to the stalk.
- Peel the onion, wash it, cut into thin half rings.
Cut the bacon or brisket into cubes, place in a large saucepan, and cook until translucent.
Add the onion, fry until golden brown, then add the paprika and stir quickly.
Place peppers and tomatoes in a saucepan, add a little salt, and simmer over high heat. Stir until the tomatoes release their juice so as not to burn.
When the liquid has evaporated, reduce the heat and continue extinguishing.
Start tasting and add salt if necessary. The taste of the dish should be rich. When you are satisfied with it, turn it off and enjoy real Hungarian pepper leczo and tomato with bacon.
Cooking options
If you deviate a little from the classic recipe, which the Magyars themselves often do, you can prepare several variations of lecho:
- When you reduce the heat, add 2 tablespoons of wine vinegar and (or) a little garlic, sugar, a few black peppercorns to the lecho - the taste will become more intense.
- Hungarians often add sliced smoked sausage or frankfurters (raw meat - under no circumstances!) to pepper and tomato lecho when the dish has boiled down.
- You can beat the eggs and pour them over the almost finished dish. But this is not an acquired taste; in Hungary, for example, they do this often.
Traditional lecho recipe
As we have already said, in each country lecho is prepared in its own way. The delicious winter preparation recipe we offer is traditional for us.
Product Set
For lecho, take ripe vegetables, fresh, without external damage. The twist should not only be tasty, but also beautiful, so it is better to take tomatoes and peppers red.
You will need:
- tomatoes – 3 kg;
- onions (white or golden, blue should not be taken) - 1.8 kg;
- sweet carrots – 1.8 kg;
- vegetable oil (preferably refined sunflower or corn) – 0.5 l;
- sugar – 1 glass;
- bay leaf – 3 pcs.;
- ground black pepper and salt - to your taste;
- sweet pepper – 3 kg.
Cooking method
Wash the vegetables thoroughly. Peel the onions, carrots, remove the core and seeds from the pepper.
Scald the tomatoes with boiling water and place them in cold water. Make a cross cut and remove the skin.
Cut vegetables:
- tomatoes and peppers - cubes;
- carrots - into strips;
- onion - in half rings.
In a deep frying pan or saucepan with a thick bottom, heat the vegetable oil, add carrots and onions, fry until the latter becomes transparent and begins to brown.
Add tomatoes and peppers, salt and pepper, add sugar, bay leaf, mix well, simmer until tender.
Fill sterile jars with hot tomato and pepper lecho, seal tightly, turn upside down, and wrap warmly.
When the twists have cooled, store them.
Lecho in unripe tomato puree
Using green or brown fruits instead of ripe tomatoes gives an interesting result. We offer you a recipe with a photo. Lecho prepared using it will not only have an interesting, unusual taste, but also an original appearance.
Preliminary remarks
Please note that below, the list of ingredients will indicate the weight of peppers already peeled and pureed from green or unripe tomatoes. If you don't have a special scale, weighing the pieces and liquid can be a real challenge. Proceed as follows:
- Peppers that have been cleared of seeds and stalks for making lecho can be easily weighed and simply transferred to a cellophane bag.
- Find out the weight of whole green or brown tomatoes. Remove the seeds and stalks, place them in a plastic bag, and weigh again. Subtract the smaller number from the larger one - this will be the weight of the tomato puree. When grinding in a meat grinder or chopping with a blender, it will not change.
Grocery list
As in previous recipes, all vegetables must be fresh and undamaged. The tomatoes used are not entirely green, but milk or brown.
You will need:
- peeled tomatoes – 3 kg;
- sweet pepper – 1 kg;
- sugar – 100 g;
- salt – 60 g.
Cooking method
Lecho according to this recipe is prepared in two stages.First you need to cook tomato puree, and then move on to lecho.
Tomato puree
To prepare 1 kg of tomato puree you will need 3 kg of peeled tomatoes.
Cut green or brown tomatoes without seeds so that they can be easily turned into a meat grinder.
Place the crushed mass in an enamel pan, bring to a boil, and cool.
Take a sieve with holes no larger than 1.5 mm in diameter, wipe the tomatoes, place in a clean saucepan, and place on low heat.
Boil with constant stirring (so that the puree does not burn) until the original volume is reduced by 2.5 times. You will get approximately 1 kg of finished product.
Lecho
Wash the peppers with cold water. Remove seeds and stalks, rinse, cut lengthwise into strips about 2 cm wide.
Pour the prepared puree over the pepper, or it can be hot. Add salt, sugar, stir.
After boiling, simmer for about 10 minutes with constant stirring. Let cool to about 90 degrees.
Heat clean, dry jars in the oven.
Distribute the pepper and tomato lecho in a container so that the pieces are completely covered with puree.
Place a clean towel at the bottom of a wide container of water heated to 60-70 degrees. Place jars in it, cover with boiled lids.
To sterilize lecho prepared in 0.5 liter jars at 100 degrees, it takes 25 minutes, in liter jars - 35 minutes.
After finishing the treatment, allow the water to cool slightly, otherwise the glass may burst due to temperature changes.
Seal the lids tightly, turn the jars upside down, wrap them warmly, and let cool.
Lecho "Family"
How to make lecho tasty and spicy like adjika? Pay attention to our recipe. It is prepared quickly and so easily that you can entrust the entire process to a teenager or a man.
Required Products
You will need:
- large fleshy red sweet pepper – 3 kg;
- ripe tomatoes – 3 kg;
- garlic – 3 large heads;
- hot pepper 1-3 pods;
- sugar – 1 glass;
- salt – 1 heaped tablespoon.
We remind you once again that all vegetables must be ripe, fresh, and of good quality, especially sweet red peppers.
Cooking method
This pepper lecho recipe is prepared quite quickly; sterilize the jars in advance.
Wash the tomatoes, remove the white part from the stem if necessary, cut into pieces.
Remove the seeds and stem from hot and sweet peppers.
Grind tomatoes and hot peppers through a meat grinder.
For lecho, the recipe calls for the use of fleshy, thick-walled sweet peppers. Cut it into pieces of approximately 1-1.5 cm by 6-7 cm. But such peppers are expensive, naturally, if you want to save money or grow ordinary Bulgarian varieties, you can use fruits of any size. In this case, make larger pieces.
Place the chopped peppers and the mixture minced in a meat grinder into a saucepan, add sugar and salt.
Stir and place on low heat.
After the pan boils, simmer with constant stirring for 30 minutes.
Pass the garlic through a press and add to the lecho.
How long it will take to cook depends on the thickness of the pepper wall; the thicker it is, the longer the pan should be on the fire. The garlic should simmer for at least 10 minutes.
Taste and add salt or sugar if necessary.
Place the lecho in sterile jars, roll them up, turn them upside down, and wrap them warmly.
Conclusion
We hope you enjoyed our recipes. Bon appetit!
