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Popular in our country and in all European countries, lecho is actually a national Hungarian dish. Spread across the continent, it has undergone a lot of changes. At home in Hungary, lecho is a hot dish of bacon, tomato, sweet pepper and onion. The Germans always add smoked sausages or sausages to it. In Bulgaria, this is a twist, which includes only tomatoes and bell peppers. We have a winter preparation of vegetables included in the Hungarian version of lecho, often with garlic, carrots, and hot peppers.
We prepare a twist with and without vinegar, with red or green tomatoes, with obligatory pasteurization or simply by laying out hot vegetables in sterile jars. One thing unites all such various recipes – bell pepper lecho for the winter turns out to be very tasty and has been one of our favorite snacks for many years.
Lecho in Bulgarian
In Bulgaria, they really liked lecho, but for some reason they cook it according to a simplified recipe.
Required Products
This twist is prepared without vinegar. For 6 jars of 0,5 liters you will need:
- red tomatoes – 3 kg;
- bulgarian pepper – 2 kg;
- sugar – 1 glass;
- salt – about 2 tablespoons.
Cooking lecho
Dip the tomatoes in boiling water, then cool in cold water. Remove the skin, cut in half.
Divide the pepper into two halves, peel the seeds, remove the stalk, rinse under running water.
Bulgarian pepper and tomatoes cut into half rings 0,5 cm thick or a little more.
Mix with sugar and salt, let stand for 5-10 minutes, so that the tomatoes release a little juice.
Pour the vegetables into a heavy bottomed saucepan.
Put a container with chopped vegetables on a quiet fire, stir until the tomatoes release juice and boil.
Cover the saucepan with a lid, cook Bulgarian lecho at a low boil for 20 minutes.
Put a hot snack in pre-sterilized jars, roll up. Place upside down, wrap in an old blanket, leave to cool.
We offer you a simple video recipe for lecho, prepared in a way very similar to the Bulgarian version:
It differs only in that the tomatoes do not need to be cut, but cranked in a meat grinder, and the list of ingredients includes vegetable oil, a little vinegar and peppercorns.
Treat for very lazy housewives
Perhaps you think you already know the simplest bell pepper lecho recipe. We will show that this is not the case by offering a quick cooking method that you can entrust to your daughter as the first experiment in harvesting spins for the winter.
Required Products
For this recipe, you will need a minimum set of products:
- Bulgarian pepper – 2 kg;
- tomato paste or sauce – 1 half liter jar;
- boiled water – 0,5 l;
- sugar, pepper, salt – optional.
Cooking lecho
Free the pepper from seeds and stalk, cut into strips or small pieces.
Blanch the lecho pepper for a minute, then refrigerate quickly.
Since lecho is prepared without vinegar, you can take any tomato paste for it, both store-bought and homemade. Don’t go overboard with your choice of sauce. You can take any prepared for the winter on your own, but store-bought – only for long-term storage, which is usually sold in a glass jar, and not in plastic packaging.
Mix the tomato paste with water directly in the pan, lay the bell pepper, cook lecho for 10 minutes from the moment of boiling.
Pour in black ground pepper or its peas if desired, salt, sugar. Boil for another 5 minutes, stirring constantly. During this time, you need to have time to adjust the taste, so we do not recommend that you move away from the stove during the cooking process.
Arrange the lecho in sterile jars, screw on the lids boiled in advance. Turn the blanks upside down, wrap with towels or a warm blanket, set aside to cool. Remove for storage.
Lecho in Zaporozhye
This recipe for cooking lecho from bell peppers with tomatoes cannot be called the easiest. In fact, there is nothing complicated in it, despite the seemingly extensive list of products. But lecho in Zaporozhye is not only fragrant and tasty, but also has an attractive appearance, as can be seen from the presented photos.
Required Products
In order to cook lecho according to this recipe, you will need:
- bulgarian pepper – 5 kg;
- carrots – 0,5 kg;
- garlic – 2 heads;
- parsley greens – 3 g;
- dill greens – 3 g;
- bitter pepper – 1 pcs.;
- vegetable oil – 150 g;
- ripe tomatoes – 5 kg;
- sugar – 1 glass;
- vinegar – 75 ml;
- salt – 100 of
Cooking lecho
Wash the carrots, peel, chop into pieces so that they can be easily turned in a meat grinder.
Wash, remove, if necessary, white spots on the stalks of tomatoes, cut, combine with carrots and pass through a meat grinder.
Rinse parsley and dill well, finely chop. Peel the garlic, and then chop it through a press, or chop with a knife.
In a thick-bottomed saucepan or a cooking basin, combine the ground vegetables and herbs for winter harvesting, mix, and cook.
When the lecho boils, make the fire smaller, boil for 15 minutes.
Wash the bitter and Bulgarian pepper well, remove the stalks and seeds. Rinse under running water.
Finely chop the hot pepper, and sweet lecho for this recipe can be cut as you like, put in a boiling mixture.
Add sugar, salt and stir.
30 minutes after boiling, pour in the vinegar.
The bell pepper lecho will be ready when it boils for another 15 minutes.
While still hot, pour it into sterilized jars, roll it up, turn it upside down, wrap it with something warm.
Lecho without vinegar
This is a rather original recipe, which includes cucumbers. Lecho can be easily modified by cooking with onions – the taste will be different. But how much and when to add it – decide for yourself. Pre-roasted or sautéed onions add sweetness, while those added raw during the cooking process add spiciness.
Required Products
To prepare lecho you will need:
- tomatoes – 2 kg;
- cucumbers – 2 kg;
- Bulgarian pepper – 2 kg;
- garlic – 1 head;
- sugar – 1 glass;
- salt – 1 tablespoon with a slide.
All vegetables must be fresh, without damage, of good quality.
Method of preparation
Wash all vegetables thoroughly.
Scald the tomatoes with boiling water, cool under the tap, make cuts on the top, remove the skin. If necessary, cut out the white areas adjacent to the stalk.
Randomly cut the tomatoes, put them in a saucepan and salt – let the juice run a little.
Turn on the stove, bring the lecho to a boil over low heat, stirring constantly.
Remove seeds from sweet pepper, rinse, cut into pieces. If desired, small fruits can simply be cut into four parts.
Wash the cucumbers, cut off the ends. Large, peel the fruits, cut into circles 0,5 cm thick or a little more. It is not necessary to remove the skin from young cucumbers.
Add peppers and cucumbers to the pot with tomatoes.
When the lecho boils, add sugar and chopped garlic (for this recipe, you can even cut it into thin slices).
Boil, stirring occasionally for 30 minutes. Taste, add salt and sugar if needed.
Lay out the lecho in jars sterilized in advance, roll it up, put it upside down and wrap it with a blanket.
Very harmful drug
Why did we name the recipe that way? Lecho contains honey, which undergoes heat treatment. Opinions about whether honey is harmful after heating above 40-45 degrees differed among both doctors and traditional healers. We will not consider this issue in detail here.
Just note that honey is often included in confectionery products, and is also widely used in the East, for example, in China for cooking meat dishes. Whether you cook lecho according to the proposed recipe, decide for yourself. It turns out very tasty, but thanks to the same honey, it is quite expensive.
Required Products
You will need the following:
- bulgarian pepper – 2 kg;
- vinegar – 1 cup;
- refined sunflower oil – 1 cup;
- honey – 1 glass.
Method of preparation
Peel the peppers from the stalks and seeds, rinse thoroughly.
Cut it into not very large pieces, arrange in sterile jars.
Combine honey, vinegar, vegetable oil. Mix thoroughly, although you will not achieve uniformity even using a mixer.
Put the dressing on a quiet fire, stirring constantly, bring to a boil.
Without removing the pans from the heat, pour the dressing into jars of pepper, cover with boiled lids, roll up.
You may have gas station left, but most likely it will not be enough. To make the lecho work right the first time, put the pieces of pepper in jars very tightly to each other, but do not break them.
The honey-vinegar-oil mixture is not cheap, the recipe is not designed for the pieces of pepper to float freely.
Turn the jars upside down, wrap in a warm blanket.
Conclusion
I hope our recipes are varied enough so that you can choose the one you like and cook lecho. Enjoy your meal!