How to cook lecho for the winter as in a store and like grandma’s

Lecho is a dish that came from Hungary. Through the efforts of culinary experts, it was transformed beyond recognition. If Hungarian housewives mean lecho the second dish, which is based on stewed vegetables, we have one of the most delicious preparations for the winter. Consider how to make lecho for the winter at home.

Lecho is a dish for the preparation of which there are no mandatory requirements. This has contributed to the emergence of a large number of snack options. Some chefs add onions and carrots, others reduce the amount of sugar. Only tomatoes and bell peppers remain unchanged.

In the article I will share five recipes for homemade lecho. Even if you have not come across a dish before, the material will tell you how to cook a snack, introduce you to a set of products and tell you the correct cooking sequence.

Useful tips before cooking

To cook lecho at home, expensive foods are not needed. The list of main ingredients is presented by tomatoes, sweet peppers and onions. There are other versions of the Hungarian snack, which add carrots or fried onions. The result is always striking in taste. If you want your lecho to succeed, listen to the tips.

1. A ready-made snack for the winter is characterized by a rich red color with yellow or green spots. Such a color palette is due to the dish used vegetables and spices. Therefore, choose vegetables responsibly.
2. The best lecho comes only from ripe vegetables. Sweet pepper is allowed to take unripe. We are talking about pods with an orange tint. The main thing is to choose a meaty vegetable.
3. Cooking lecho is better from fleshy tomatoes. Pass their dense flesh through a meat grinder to get a thick puree. To remove grains and skins, wipe the tomato mass through a sieve.
4. Use caution with spices. When using spicy herbs, do not overdo it, otherwise they will kill the aroma of pepper. For lecho, garlic, bay leaf and ground paprika are perfect.
5. The classic lecho is based on bacon. If you are preserving, use flavourless and tasteless vegetable oil. Refined oil is the best option.

Now you know the basic subtleties and secrets of making a good lecho at home. Use them to give the dish an exquisite taste, uniform and delicate texture.

Classic bell pepper and tomato recipe

Description of popular recipes start with the classic version. For the preparation of dishes for the winter, it fits perfectly. The rich composition and aromatic spices make the snack indispensable for the winter table.

• Prepare tomatoes and bell peppers. Rinse each vegetable with water, peel and cut into quarters. Cut the peeled onions in half rings.
• Place a thick-walled pan on the stove, pour in vegetable oil. Put chopped onion in hot oil.When it is fried, add the tomatoes, salt and simmer on low heat for about 15 minutes.
• Send bell peppers to the pan. Stir the mass, simmer for 5 minutes under the lid and 10 with the top open. Remember to constantly stir the contents.
• After time, add chopped garlic, vinegar and sugar to the pan, and after 20 minutes, send chopped herbs, paprika and ground pepper. Stew for 10 minutes.
• Sterilized jars are ideal for preparing snacks for the winter. Put the dish in them, roll them up and put them upside down. Cover the preservation with a warm blanket and leave for a day.

I think you have already seen that a dish with Hungarian roots and Russian improvements is not difficult to prepare. With a little patience, get a great winter snack, which saturate the body with vitamins and delight the soul with a delicious taste.

How to make lecho for the winter as in a store

Shelves of shops are full of cans with preservation, but many hostesses still make preparations for the winter at home. And no wonder, because the home version combines natural products, excellent taste and benefits. It also has no preservatives, dyes or other chemicals.

To recreate a store dish is problematic, because under industrial conditions, the ingredients are subjected to intense heat treatment, but real.

• Tomatoes - 3 kg.
• Sweet red pepper - 700 g.
• Sweet green pepper - 300 g.
• Sugar - 2 tablespoons.
• Salt.

1. Rinse the pepper with water, remove the stalks with the seeds. After processing, cut 2 x 2 cm squares.
2. After washing, cut the tomatoes in half, pass through a meat grinder, and then through a sieve. Pour the tomato paste into the pan, put on the stove and cook until the volume is reduced by three.
3. After cooking, weigh the mashed potatoes to correctly determine the amount of salt. Take a tablespoon of salt per liter of pasta. Return the grated tomatoes to the stove, add sugar and pepper, cook over medium heat for 10 minutes.
4. Put the hot mass in jars. Make sure the tomato paste completely covers the pieces of pepper. Cover the jars with lids, put in a wide pan, pour hot water to the shoulders and sterilize for 30 minutes.
5. After time, take out the cans from the lecho from the water and roll up. Put on the floor upside down and wrap. After cooling, send to the place provided for storage of preservation.

This homemade lecho without vinegar tastes very much like a store one, but is distinguished by the naturalness of the ingredients and maximum safety for households. Be sure to try it.

How to cook lecho like grandma

Lecho is an excellent winter snack. The recipe, which I will share below, I inherited from my grandmother. Over many years of culinary practice, she brought it to perfection. I admit, it’s tastier than the dish than "grandma’s bed", I have not had to try.

• Sweet pepper - 30 pods.
• Tomatoes - 3 kg.
• Sugar - 0.66 cups.
• Salt - 1.5 tablespoons.
• Vinegar - 150 ml.
• Sunflower oil - 1 cup.
• Garlic.

1. Rinse the pepper with water, cut in half, remove the seeds and cut into long strips 1 cm wide. Fold in a large bowl.
2. Wash the tomatoes. Pour pure vegetables through a meat grinder, put in a large saucepan and boil for about 5 minutes. Add vinegar, sugar and salt, vegetable oil. After boiling add pepper, mix and cook for 5 minutes.
3. Prepare the cans. In each sterilized container, put 2 cloves of pre-peeled garlic, pour the snack and roll. Store preservation in the refrigerator or in the pantry.

Grandma Emma's Video Recipe

“Grandma’s Lecho” I advise you to serve as a separate dish or as a side dish for meatmashed potatoes or porridge. Any combination will bring a lot of joy and satisfy culinary needs.

Homemade zucchini lecho for the winter

There are many winter dishes that are suitable for long-term storage. Among them, lecho from zucchini in tomato sauce. To get a culinary masterpiece, I advise you to use young zucchini. They have delicate peels and soft seeds. If the vegetables are old, cut off the rough skin.

• Young zucchini - 2 kg.
• Sweet pepper - 500 g.
• Tomatoes - 1 kg.
• Onion - 10 heads.
• Tomato paste - 400 g.
• Sunflower oil - 200 ml.
• Salt - 2 tablespoons.
• Vinegar - 1 tablespoon.
• Sugar - 1 cup.

1. Rinse the vegetables with water. Pass the tomatoes through a meat grinder, and cut onions, peppers and zucchini into half rings. Put the vegetables in a deep bowl and leave for several hours.
2. When the tomatoes and zucchini give juice, pour the diluted tomato paste. Take a liter of water for the indicated amount of paste. Put a bowl of vegetables on the fire, add salt, sugar, vegetable oil and mix.
3. After boiling, turn on a minimum heat and simmer for 10 minutes. After the time has passed, pour in the vinegar, wait another 5 minutes and turn off the stove.
4. Pour the finished lecho into glass jars, roll up, put it on the floor upside down and cover. An old jacket, coat or an unnecessary blanket is suitable for the role of insulation. After 24 hours, check each can for leaks.

Zucchini lecho perfectly complements the taste of wheat porridge, buckwheat or fried potatoes. Some housewives even use it as an additive in the preparation of hot dishes, including borsch. Lecho fills it with colors and multifaceted taste.

Cooking lecho with rice for the winter

The last to review my favorite homemade lecho recipe. Despite the simplicity of preparation and the use of conventional ingredients, an excellent winter snack is obtained, which is characterized by satiety, excellent taste and a "short life" - it is eaten instantly.

• Tomatoes - 3 kg.
• Rice - 1.5 cups.
• Sweet pepper - 1 kg.
• Carrot - 1 kg.
• Onion - 1 kg.
• Garlic - 1 head.
• Vegetable oil - 400 ml.
• Sugar - 150 g.
• Vinegar - 100 ml.
• Salt - 3 tablespoons.
• Spice.

1. Prepare the vegetables. Dip the tomatoes in boiling water for 3 minutes, then fill with cold water, remove the skin. After that, pass through the meat grinder.
2. Rinse sweet pepper with water, remove seeds and grind with straws, pass carrots through a coarse grater, chop onion and garlic finely
3. Combine the twisted tomatoes with salt, sugar and vegetable oil, mix and pour into a large enameled pan. Cover the container, place on the stove, bring to a boil and boil for 5 minutes.
4. Add prepared bell pepper to the pan along with onions, garlic and carrots, mix. After boiling, pour in your favorite spices. I add 3 cloves, a teaspoon of the pepper mixture, a tablespoon of paprika and a similar amount of mustard seeds to the lecho.
5. After 5 minutes, send the pre-washed rice to the pan, mix and simmer for a third of an hour on minimum heat. Five minutes before the end, add vinegar to the dish. At the very end, try the appetizer to taste. Correct if necessary.
6. Arrange the hot salad in sterile jars, roll up, turn over and wrap until cool. After that, remove the preservation in a darkened cool place for storage.

Lecho with rice is easily stored throughout the year. But in my family this is a rarity, since households willingly absorb it both in pure form and with additions in the form of boiled potatoes or buckwheat porridge.

How to store lecho

Many preserve fruits and vegetables for the winter. And every housewife understands that to cook and roll a snack is half the battle. It is still necessary to take care of the proper storage of preservation, otherwise “exploded” cans with lecho cannot be avoided.

Many housewives are looking for interesting recipes for cooking lecho. Their interest in the dish peaks in early autumn.It is not surprising, because at this moment the active harvesting of vegetable, vitamin-rich reserves for the winter begins.

A single prescription lecho does not exist. Everything is determined by the taste, experience and variety of vegetables available. Traditionally, every housewife, as experience accumulates, experimentes with a recipe that she likes, changing the ingredients, seasonings and spices.

Caring housewives are interested in whether it is possible to store preservation at home without resorting to the help of a basement or a cellar. And not every family has such an opportunity. Yes, they are not needed. Snacks prepared for the winter are also successfully stored in the apartment, provided that the place is correctly selected for the cans and an optimal climate is created.

• Before sending preservation for the winter, make sure that the cans are tight. To do this, turn each container upside down and wait. Products are stored for a long time only in well-sealed containers.
• Store your home lecho in a dark place. Keep the sun out of the snack. Storage of sunset in the sun is fraught with deterioration of taste, quick spoilage and effect champagne.
• If during storage the contents of the jar foamed, became moldy or suspicious, discard the snack. It is not worth risking health due to conservation.

Calorie home lecho

Let's talk about the calorie content, benefits and dangers of homemade lecho made from sweet pepper, garlic, tomatoes, onions, sunflower oil, sugar and vinegar.

The calorie content of lecho is 49 kcal per 100 grams. The dish contains a lot of vitamins and minerals, phosphorus, manganese, potassium, zinc and selenium.

Lecho normalizes the digestive system, improves the condition of the skin and nails, increases appetite. According to scientists, the substances in the lecho beneficial effect on memory and slow down aging.

There are contraindications to the product. Some components of the snack are allergens that cause swelling and a rash. If there are such problems, it is better to abandon the dish in favor of fresh vegetables.

Due to the intense heat treatment, the store dish has minimal utility. What can we say about additives and preservatives in the composition, designed to increase the shelf life.

Compliance with cooking technology, together with proper storage, makes it possible to enjoy the incredible taste of home lecho throughout the year. Each jar of appetizer silently stands on a shelf, waiting for the moment when caring owners decide to diversify the diet with the next portion of benefit.