Lecsó ( , ;

Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus *Czech (surnam ...

and ; ; ; ; , ), also anglicized as lecho, is a Hungarian thick vegetable ragout or

stew A stew is a combination of solid food ingredients that have been Cooking, cooked in Soup, liquid and served in the resultant gravy. Ingredients can include any combination of vegetables and may include meat, especially tougher meats suitable for ...

which traditionally contains yellow pointed peppers,

tomato The tomato (, ), ''Solanum lycopersicum'', is a plant whose fruit is an edible Berry (botany), berry that is eaten as a vegetable. The tomato is a member of the nightshade family that includes tobacco, potato, and chili peppers. It originate ...

onion An onion (''Allium cepa'' , from Latin ), also known as the bulb onion or common onion, is a vegetable that is the most widely cultivated species of the genus '' Allium''. The shallot is a botanical variety of the onion which was classifie ...

, salt, and ground sweet and/or hot

paprika Paprika is a spice made from dried and ground red peppers, traditionally ''capsicum annuum''. It can have varying levels of Pungency, heat, but the peppers used for hot paprika tend to be milder and have thinner flesh than those used to produce ...

as a base recipe. The onions and peppers are usually sauteed in

lard Lard is a Quasi-solid, semi-solid white fat product obtained by rendering (animal products), rendering the adipose tissue, fatty tissue of a domestic pig, pig.

bacon Bacon is a type of Curing (food preservation), salt-cured pork made from various cuts of meat, cuts, typically the pork belly, belly or less fatty parts of the back. It is eaten as a side dish (particularly in breakfasts), used as a central in ...

fat, or sunflower oil.

Garlic Garlic (''Allium sativum'') is a species of bulbous flowering plants in the genus '' Allium''. Its close relatives include the onion, shallot, leek, chives, Welsh onion, and Chinese onion. Garlic is native to central and south Asia, str ...

can also be a traditional ingredient. It is also considered to be

traditional food Traditional foods are foods and Dish (food), dishes that are passed on through generations or which have been consumed for many generations. Traditional foods and dishes are traditional in nature, and may have a historic precedent in a national ...

, Slovak and

former Yugoslavia The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (commonly abbreviated as SFRY or SFR Yugoslavia), known from 1945 to 1963 as the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia, commonly referred to as Socialist Yugoslavia or simply Yugoslavia, was a country ...

n cuisine and is also very common in

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

and

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

. Most Hungarian recipes recommend the mildest variant of Hungarian wax pepper, which are in season August–October which is also when field tomatoes are at their best. Other recipes suggest using both

bell pepper The bell pepper (also known as sweet pepper, paprika, pepper, capsicum or, in some parts of the US midwest, mango) is the fruit of plants in the Grossum Group of the species ''Capsicum annuum''. Cultivars of the plant produce fruits in diff ...

and banana pepper as alternatives.

Varieties

There is a large variety of lecsó, the base of all being a mixture of tomatoes and peppers (both sweet and hot), onions, spiced with salt, sometimes red paprika powder and often garlic. Some recipes may also use

bay leaf The bay leaf is an aromatic leaf commonly used as a herb in cooking. It can be used whole, either dried or fresh, in which case it is removed from the dish before consumption, or less commonly used in ground form. The flavour that a bay lea ...

, ground

black pepper Black pepper (''Piper nigrum'') is a flowering vine in the family Piperaceae, cultivated for its fruit (the peppercorn), which is usually dried and used as a spice and seasoning. The fruit is a drupe (stonefruit) which is about in diameter ...

, or

thyme Thyme () is a culinary herb consisting of the dried aerial parts of some members of the genus ''Thymus (plant), Thymus'' of flowering plants in the mint family Lamiaceae. Thymes are native to Eurasia and north Africa. Thymes have culinary, medici ...

, but those are not original ones. To make the perfect lecsó base, one must render the lard from the smoked bacon (if that is used instead of oil, which is also common), and fry the onion slices until the edges become slightly brownish. Next the pepper slices must be added and fried until crisp. The tomatoes come last because, if added at the beginning, they would soak the onions and the peppers. Lecsó may be made with cooked rice or scrambled eggs. It is also commonly served as a hot dish, for example, with fried fish and

sour cream Sour cream (sometimes known as soured cream in British English) is a dairy product obtained by fermenting regular cream with certain kinds of lactic acid bacteria. The bacterial culture, which is introduced either deliberately or naturall ...

or in a Hungarian style crepe (palacsinta). Most of the recipes are with sausage (called "

kolbász Hungarian sausages are sausages found in the Hungarian cuisine, cuisine of Hungary. Hungary produces a vast number of sui sausages, sausage types. They may be boiled, fresh or dried, and smoked, with different spices and flavors, "hot" or "mil ...

" such as lecsókolbász, made specifically for this purpose, or Debrecener sausage) bacon, or Frankfurter. Some are decorated with slices of hard-boiled eggs or thickened with beaten eggs. If meat is added, it may be added first and fried with the onions and pepper slices. Lecsó, like its French semi-counterpart

ratatouille Ratatouille ( , ; ) is a French Provençal dish of stewed vegetables that originated in Nice and is sometimes referred to as ''ratatouille niçoise'' (). Recipes and cooking times differ widely, but common ingredients include tomato, garlic ...

, often stands alone as a lunch dish, in which case it is often consumed with bread. Plain lecsó can be served as a side dish accompanying various main dishes, for example roasted chicken, pheasant, pork, beef, or Eszterhazy steak. It is widely believed in Hungary that the best lecsó is made over an open fire in a "bogrács" (a cauldron), a Hungarian-style

barbecue Barbecue or barbeque (often shortened to BBQ worldwide; barbie or barby in Australia and New Zealand) is a term used with significant regional and national variations to describe various cooking methods that employ live fire and smoke to coo ...

. In Hungary, the dish is very popular and even has its own festivals. In Germany, lecsó is referred to as Letscho and often used as the primary ingredient of a sauce that is used with many different meals. It is usually made of tomatoes, peppers, and onions among other regional additions. In Poland, lecsó (called leczo) is usually made from red pepper,

zucchini Zucchini (; : ''zucchini'' or ''zucchinis''), courgette () or ''Cucurbita pepo'' is a summer squash, a Vine, vining herbaceous plant whose fruit are harvested when their immature seeds and Fruit anatomy#Epicarp, epicarp (rind) are still soft a ...

, tomatoes, onion and garlic, sausage, and spiced with powdered chilli pepper. Leczo should be served hot and spicy. It probably came to Poland from Hungary.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lecso Hungarian stews Lunch dishes National dishes

Varieties

See also

References