Few vegetable dishes are as popular as lecho. Although in our country its composition and taste have already changed beyond recognition, compared to the classic Hungarian recipe. After all, lecho is a traditional Hungarian vegetable dish, the composition of which can be very diverse, but the essential ingredients for it are tomatoes, sweet bell peppers and onions.
If you delve into history, then the roots of this dish go back to the XNUMXth century, to the shores of France, where poor peasants in the summer often cooked themselves a dish of seasonal vegetables that later became famous – ratatouille. In the usual version, it was a mixture of zucchini, tomatoes, peppers, onions and garlic with the addition of various fragrant herbs: rosemary, mint, basil, cilantro. It was his recipe that formed the basis for the preparation of the Hungarian lecho a little later. After all, the actual word lecho translated from Hungarian is translated as ratatouille.
This dish is most often used as a side dish for meat. However, in Hungary, homemade sausages and smoked meat were often introduced into the composition of the lecho itself.
In Our Country, where summer does not last long, and you want to extend the season for consuming fragrant and vitamin vegetables and herbs for a longer period, lecho has become a preparation for the winter that is unique in taste. Experienced housewives, sometimes not even knowing about the rich history of this dish, experiment on their own with its ingredients, sometimes getting the most varied snacks and side dishes in terms of composition. Perhaps the most classic and versatile cooking recipe has become lecho with onions. It is usually liked by almost everyone, including children, and it is about the features of its preparation that will be discussed in this article.
The classic and easiest recipe
The easiest and fastest way to cook lecho is according to the recipe below, when no additional steps are taken with the onion, except for slicing.
So, for the manufacture of lecho you will need the following components:
- Bulgarian sweet red or orange pepper – 2 kg;
- Tomatoes – 1 kg;
- Onion – 1 kg;
- Garlic – 7-8 cloves;
- Greens (cilantro, basil, dill, parsley) – only about 100 grams;
- Vinegar wine, apple or table 9% – 1 tablespoon;
- Sugar – 100 grams;
- Ground black pepper – 1 teaspoon;
- Salt and other spices – to taste.
First, prepare the tomato sauce from the tomato. To do this, the tomatoes are thoroughly washed and peeled by scalding with boiling water. After they are cut into arbitrary pieces and chopped in a blender or in a food processor. Then the entire fragrant tomato mixture is placed over medium heat in a thick-walled saucepan. Bring to a boil and heat for another 15 minutes.
At the same time, Bulgarian pepper is washed and cleaned of tails and seed chambers. It is cut into rather large pieces – one fruit is divided into 6-8 parts.
Onions are peeled and cut into thin half-rings. Garlic after cleaning is crushed in any convenient way.
When the tomato mixture is boiled enough, pepper, onion, garlic, salt and sugar are thrown into it. The future lecho is brought to a boil and stewed for an average of about 10 minutes. See what kind of pepper you like best in this dish, although it is desirable that it remains a little firm.
At the end of cooking, finely chopped greens, spices and vinegar are added to the lecho, everything is brought to a boil again.
According to this recipe, you may not even add vinegar, but in this case, lecho with onions must be sterilized after being laid out in jars. Liter jars are usually sterilized for about 30 minutes, three-liter jars for one hour.
Since the temperature in it can be set to more than 100 ° C, the total time for sterilizing the dish decreases accordingly and the process itself is much more convenient and faster than on the stove.
Lecho with fried onions
The advantage of this recipe for cooking lecho with onions for the winter is, in addition to the rich and spicy taste of fried onions, the ability to cook a dish without sterilization.
All the main ingredients used to make lecho are exactly the same as in the previous recipe, but 2-3 tablespoons of refined vegetable oil are added to them.
The first step is preparing the tomato sauce. When boiling tomatoes, you can immediately add chopped basil to the tomatoes. Then pepper, 1 tablespoon of oil, sugar and salt, cut into convenient pieces, is added to the tomato mixture. The vegetable mixture is boiled for 10-15 minutes, after which finely crushed garlic and spices are added to it.
At the same time, onion, cut into half rings, is fried to a golden hue in the remaining vegetable oil. Then a couple of tablespoons of flour are added to the onion, everything is overcooked for even less than a minute and the resulting mixture is added to the almost ready lecho along with chopped herbs and vinegar. Everything is very thoroughly mixed until completely dissolved.
Necessarily hot, lecho is laid out in sterile jars and closed with sterile lids. It is advisable to immediately turn the jars upside down and cover with a thick towel until they cool completely.
Useful Tips
To make lecho with onions for the winter really tasty, it is advisable to listen to the following tips:
- Tomatoes for lecho should be really ripe and juicy. You can even use slightly overripe fruits, but they should not be spoiled. It is undesirable to use ready-made tomato paste for cooking lecho. If there is no other way out, then the latter should be of the highest quality.
- For lecho, fleshy sweet varieties of bell peppers are most suitable. The fruits should be ripe, but never overripe, as they need to retain a slightly firm and slightly crunchy structure during the cooking process.
- A variety of herbs will make lecho especially fragrant. When fresh, it is advisable to add them 5 minutes before readiness. But dry herbal powder can be added at any stage of preparation.
- If you want to experiment and have time, you can try adding other ingredients to the classic lecho recipe, such as zucchini, carrots and eggplant.
- Store blanks in a cool and dark place. And after opening, it is advisable to place in the refrigerator under the lid for no more than 1-3 days.
Try to cook lecho first according to the classic recipe, and if you like it, then do not be afraid to experiment with a variety of additives. Perhaps you will get your own dish, the recipe of which will then pass on to your children and grandchildren.
