Hungarian cuisine is rich in recipes for dishes withpaprika and tomatoes. They are added to literally everything there, with the possible exception of sweet dishes. Even fish soup is prepared with peppers and tomatoes. Lecho is in a special place - a self-sufficient dish in the form of pieces of pepper in tomato sauce. The original recipe can include smoked pork sausages, brisket, rice, mushrooms and everything that the soul of Count Dracula's fellow countrymen desires. To prepare lecho, Hungary even grows a special variety of paprika - white. But its taste is not much different from the multi-colored peppers available in other countries, so lecho has spread widely throughout Europe. It is also known in Russia, but not in its original form, but as a preparation for the winter, a version of vegetable stew, a cold appetizer or gravy for side dishes and in dishes where the recipe calls for bell peppers. Hungarians consume lecho exclusively hot.

Let's try lech in Hungarian

Let's make our work a little easierkitchen: let's make lecho with tomato paste, anyway, it's impossible to find tomatoes like those in Hungary in the northern regions of Russia. Just take a good paste, Italian or from Central Asia. There, tomatoes ripen under the hot sun, and they have a completely different taste. So, let's take:

• Sweet bell pepper - 1 kg
• Tomato paste - 250 g
• Water or any broth - 1 glass
• Pork fat - about 100 g
• A pair of large bulbs
• Garlic to taste
• Salt, black pepper, sugar, ground paprika
• Semi-smoked sausage or sausages
• Greenery

Cut the pork fat into small cubes andIn a deep frying pan over low heat, fry the cracklings until golden brown. You can remove them or leave them. Turn up the heat. Cut the onion into half rings and fry in the rendered fat until transparent. Remove stems and seeds from the pepper, cut into not very small pieces and place in the pan where the onion is fried. Stir until the pepper becomes slightly soft. Add tomato paste and top up with water or broth. You can adjust the thickness of the sauce to taste by adding a little more or less liquid. Salt, pepper to taste, add sugar. If desired, you can add half a glass of rice so that it cooks with the vegetables. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and let it simmer slowly for 20 minutes. Then season with garlic and herbs. If the sauce is too thin, you need to cook it a little with the lid open. Place sliced ​​sausages or salami into the lecho, bring to a boil and remove from heat. Leave covered for 10 minutes. Serve with fresh white bread, with sour cream as a separate dish or prepare fried potatoes or mashed potatoes as a side dish. Enjoy! For variations of the basic recipe, you can stir in a few eggs beaten with a fork into the lecho after it has been removed from heat. You can separately fry a sunny-side up egg or boil a poached egg and put it on the vegetables. Or replace the sausages with fried fresh mushrooms. Then it is better to use smoked lard for frying vegetables and mushrooms to give the necessary aroma.

And if you roll in jars ...

This will result in a preparation that is familiar to all housewives.for the winter. If you want hot Hungarian lecho in the winter, you just need to heat up the contents of the jar in the microwave or in a frying pan, add the same sausages or smoked brisket, and you will be happy. Let's prepare a vegetable base with tomato paste for lecho for future use, so that in the winter you don't have to look for expensive imported peppers in stores and waste time preparing the dish. Products you need:

• Bell pepper - 5 kg
• Tomato paste - 1 kg
• Onion - 2 kg
• Carrots - 1-1.5 kg
• Water - 1-1.5 l
• Salt, sugar, pepper to taste
• Garlic - two heads, but it's a matter of taste
• Table vinegar - 1-2 tbsp.

Prepare the jars, wash and sterilize with anymethod. Boil the lids. You will have to cook lecho in a large saucepan or, better yet, in a cauldron. First, you need to prepare all the vegetables. Wash the pepper, remove the stems and seeds, cut into pieces or strips, not too finely. Peel the onion, cut into rings. Wash the carrots more thoroughly than the others, peel. Cut into thin circles or strips, you can fancy it - for beauty. Mix the tomato paste with water to the desired consistency and bring to a boil. Then put the prepared vegetables in the sauce. Add the carrots first: they are hard and will cook a little longer. Pour in the vinegar, salt and sweeten with sugar a little more than to taste. During cooking, the vegetables will absorb excess salt and sugar. Season with pepper to taste. After 15 minutes, throw in the pepper and onion. Bring to a boil and simmer over low heat for about half an hour. Pack the hot lecho into jars and roll them up. Place the lecho approximately 1-1.5 cm below the neck of the jar. Roll up the jar immediately after filling. Turn it upside down on a flat surface and leave until the lecho has completely cooled. Then put the jars in a cool place: a pantry or cellar.

Recipe options

You can make lecho with eggplants or zucchini. Take:

• Pepper - 1 kg
• Zucchini or eggplant - 1 kg
• Onions - 0.5 kg
• Tomato paste - 0.5 kg
• Water - about 0.5 l
• Table vinegar - 1 tbsp.
• Salt, sugar, pepper

Wash, peel and chop the vegetables.Dilute tomato paste with water and bring to a boil. Add vinegar, salt, pepper and sugar. Place vegetables in boiling sauce, bring to a boil again and cook for 30 minutes. Put into hot jars and roll up. For the recipe for lecho with beans you will need:

• Bell pepper - 1 kg
• Beans - 5 cups
• Carrots - 0.5 kg
• Onion - 0.5 kg
• Tomato paste - 0.5 kg
• Vinegar - 1 tbsp.
• Salt, sugar, pepper, garlic - to taste

The beans should be soaked for a few hours in advance and boiled until done. Then proceed as in the previous recipe. Easy cooking and bon appetit!

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