Many people love and prepare lecho. This salad has a wonderful taste and aroma. Every housewife has her own favorite recipe that she uses every year. Classic lecho has very few ingredients, often just peppers and tomatoes with added spices. However, there are other cooking options. These salads also contain other ingredients that make them more filling. For example, housewives often add rice to lecho. This is exactly the recipe we will consider now.
Lecho recipe with rice
The first step is to prepare all the ingredients. For lecho with rice for the winter we will need:
- ripe fleshy tomatoes - three kilograms;
- rice – 1.5 kilograms;
- carrots – one kilogram;
- sweet bell pepper – one kilogram;
- onions – one kilogram;
- garlic - one head;
- table vinegar 9% – up to 100 ml;
- sunflower oil – about 400 ml;
- granulated sugar – up to 180 grams;
- salt - 2 or 3 tablespoons;
- bay leaf, cloves, ground paprika and allspice to taste.
Now let's move on to preparing the salad. The tomatoes must be peeled. To do this, pour boiling water over them and keep them there for a couple of minutes. Then the water is changed to cold and they begin to carefully remove all the skin from the fruit. Such tomatoes don’t even need to be chopped using a meat grinder, but simply chopped with a knife. This will not affect the taste in any way.
Next we move on to the bell pepper. It is washed and then all seeds and stalks are removed.It is better to cut vegetables into strips or slices. Next, wash and peel the carrots. After this, it is grated on a grater with the largest holes.
Then peel and chop the garlic and onions. A large 10-liter enamel pan is placed on the fire, chopped tomatoes, granulated sugar, salt and sunflower oil are placed in it. Be prepared to stir the contents of the pan very often. Lecho very quickly begins to stick to the bottom, especially after adding rice.
Bring the contents of the pan to a boil and cook for 7 minutes, stirring regularly. Immediately after this, add all the chopped vegetables (sweet bell peppers, carrots, garlic and onions) to the container. Mix all this thoroughly and bring to a boil again.
After the lecho boils, you need to throw your favorite spices into the pan. You can start from the following quantity:
- allspice peas - ten pieces;
- cloves - three pieces;
- ground sweet paprika - one tablespoon;
- mustard seeds - one tablespoon;
- bay leaf - two pieces;
- ground pepper mixture - one teaspoon.
If you add bay leaf to lecho, then after 5 minutes you will need to remove it from the pan. Only now can you add dry washed rice to the dish. The experience of many housewives shows that long rice (unparboiled) is most suitable for lecho. After adding the rice, the lecho is simmered for another 20 minutes until the rice is half cooked. Remember that it is very important to stir the salad frequently at this stage.
The rice should not be completely cooked.After seaming, the jars will keep warm for a long time, so he can get there. Otherwise, you won’t end up with lecho with rice, but lecho with boiled porridge. Before turning off the heat, you need to pour vinegar into the salad.
Jars for lecho should be prepared in advance. They are thoroughly washed with dishwashing detergent or soda and rinsed thoroughly in water. After this, the containers are sterilized for 10 minutes. Then the jars are taken out of the water and placed on a clean towel so that the water is completely drained.
Now pour the hot preparation into containers and roll up with sterilized lids. Turn the containers upside down and wrap them in a warm blanket. After the salad has completely cooled, you can move the containers to a cooler storage location. This amount of ingredients yields about 6 liters of finished salad. And this is at least 12 half-liter jars of lecho with rice for the winter. Quite enough for one family.
Conclusion
Recipes for lecho with rice for the winter may differ slightly from each other. But basically this delicious salad consists of peppers, ripe tomatoes, onions, carrots and rice itself. Everyone can add a wide variety of spices to a dish to their own taste. In general, the photos you see can only convey the appearance of lecho, but not the aroma and taste. So, stop surfing the Internet, and quickly start cooking!
