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Hungarian cuisine is unthinkable without lecho. True, there it is usually served as a separate dish, bay after cooking with beaten eggs. Hungarian dishes often include smoked meat products. In European countries, lecho most often acts as a side dish. In our country, lecho from pepper and tomato is rolled into jars and used as a kind of winter salad.
And there are so many variations of this wonderful dish! Everyone cooks lecho in their own way, its exact recipe simply does not exist. 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, as there are recipes in which only pepper is present from vegetables. In this article, we will tell you how to cook lecho for the winter and give a traditional Hungarian hot appetizer recipe.
Lecho in Hungarian
A real Hungarian lecho is a hot dish. It is probably wrong to give recipes for twists without paying attention to a very tasty and easy-to-cook meal.
Required Products
To prepare this delicious dish, you need to take only fresh, high-quality vegetables, fully ripe, not damaged by diseases or pests. You will need:
- sweet pepper (necessarily red) – 1,5 kg;
- ripe tomatoes of medium size – 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.
Method of preparation
First prepare the vegetables:
- Wash the pepper, remove the stalk, seeds, rinse. Cut into strips.
- Wash the tomatoes, scald with boiling water, put in cold water for a few minutes. Make a cross-shaped incision on the top of the tomato, remove the skin. Cut into quarters, remove the white spots adjacent to the stalk.
- Peel the onion, wash, cut into thin half rings.
Cut the bacon or brisket into cubes, put in a large saucepan, cook until transparent.
Add the onion, sauté until golden, then add the paprika, stir quickly.
Put peppers and tomatoes in a saucepan, salt a little, simmer over high heat. Stir to keep from burning until the tomatoes release their juices.
When the liquid evaporates, the fire must be reduced and the extinguishing continued.
Start tasting, if necessary, add salt. The taste of the dish should be rich. When it satisfies you, turn it off and enjoy a real Hungarian pepper and tomato lecho with bacon.
Cooking options
If you deviate a little from the classic recipe, which is often done by the Magyars themselves, you can cook several variations of lecho:
- When you lower 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 sausages or sausages (raw meat – in no case!) To pepper and tomato lecho when the dish is boiled down.
- You can beat the eggs and fill them with an almost finished dish. But this is an amateur, in Hungary, for example, they do this often.
Traditional lecho recipe
As we have already said, in each country lecho is cooked in its own way. The delicious winter harvest recipe we offer is traditional for us.
Set of products
For lecho, take ripe vegetables, fresh, without external damage. The twist should be not only tasty, but also beautiful, so it is better to take red tomatoes and peppers.
You will need:
- Tomatoes – 3 kg;
- onions (white or golden, blue should not be taken) – 1,8 kg;
- carrots of sweet varieties – 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.
Method of preparation
Wash vegetables thoroughly. Peel the onion, carrot, remove the core and seeds from the pepper.
Scald tomatoes with boiling water, dip in cold water. Make a criss-cross cut, remove the skin.
Cut vegetables:
- tomatoes and peppers – cubes;
- carrots – straws;
- onions – half rings.
In a deep frying pan or saucepan with a thick bottom, heat the vegetable oil, add the carrots and onions, fry until the latter becomes transparent and begins to blush.
Pour in tomatoes and peppers, salt, pepper, add sugar, bay leaf, mix well, simmer until tender.
Fill sterile jars with hot tomato and pepper lecho, seal hermetically, turn upside down, wrap warmly.
When the spins have cooled, put them away for storage.
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. The lecho prepared according to it will have not only an interesting, unusual taste, but also an original appearance.
Preliminary remarks
Please note that below, in the list of ingredients, the weight of the already seeded peppers and mashed green or unripe tomatoes will be indicated. If you don’t have a special scale, weighing pieces and liquids can be a real challenge. Proceed as follows:
- Peeled from seeds and stalks, pepper for cooking lecho will simply be weighed, simply transferred to a plastic bag.
- Find out the weight of whole green or brown tomatoes. Remove the testicles and stalks, put them in a plastic bag, weigh them 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 grinding with a blender, it will not change.
Product List
As in previous recipes, all vegetables should be fresh, undamaged. Tomatoes are used not quite green, but dairy or brown.
You will need:
- peeled tomatoes – 3 kg;
- sweet pepper – 1 kg;
- sugar – 100 g;
- salt – 60 of
Method of preparation
Lecho according to this recipe is prepared in two stages. First you need to cook mashed tomatoes, 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, cool.
Take a sieve with holes with a diameter of no more than 1,5 mm, wipe the tomatoes, put them in a clean saucepan, put on a small fire.
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 the finished product.
Lecho
Wash the peppers with cold water. Remove seeds and stalks, rinse, cut lengthwise into strips about 2 cm wide.
Fill the pepper with ready-made puree, it can be hot. Add salt, sugar, stir.
After boiling, boil for about 10 minutes with constant stirring. Let cool to about 90 degrees.
Heat clean dry jars in the oven.
Divide the pepper and tomato lecho into a container so that the pieces are completely covered with puree.
At the bottom of a wide container with water heated to 60-70 degrees, lay a clean towel. Place jars in it, cover with boiled lids.
For sterilization at 100 degrees prepared in 0,5 l jars, lecho needs 25 minutes, in liter jars – 35 minutes.
After finishing the treatment, let the water cool down a little, otherwise the glass may burst from the temperature difference.
Seal the lids tightly, turn the jars upside down, wrap them warmly, let them cool.
Lecho “Family”
How to make lecho tasty and spicy like adjika? Check out our recipe. It is prepared quickly and so easily that you can entrust the whole process to a teenager or a man.
Required Products
You will need:
- large fleshy sweet red pepper – 3 kg;
- ripe tomatoes – 3 kg;
- garlic – 3 large heads;
- hot pepper 1-3 pods;
- sugar – 1 glass;
- salt – 1 tablespoon with a slide.
We remind you once again that all vegetables must be ripe, fresh, of good quality, especially sweet red peppers.
Method of preparation
This pepper lecho recipe is prepared quite quickly, sterilize the jars in advance.
Wash the tomatoes, if necessary, remove the white spot from the stalk, cut into pieces.
In hot and sweet peppers, remove the seeds, the stalk.
Turn the tomatoes and hot peppers through a meat grinder.
For lecho, the recipe involves the use of fleshy thick-walled sweet peppers. Cut it into slices of about 1-1,5 cm by 6-7 cm. But such a pepper is expensive, naturally, if you want to save money or grow ordinary Bulgarian varieties, you can use fruits of any size. In this case, make the pieces larger.
Put chopped pepper and chopped mass in a meat grinder into a saucepan, add sugar, salt.
Stir, put on a small fire.
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 fire. Garlic should boil for at least 10 minutes.
Taste and add salt or sugar if needed.
Arrange lecho in sterile jars, roll them up, turn them upside down, wrap them warmly.
Conclusion
We hope you enjoy our recipes. Enjoy your meal!