What is lecho, how is it made in an industrial setting and how it is prepared at home. Nutritional value, composition, benefits and harms to the body. Application in cooking, recipes.
Lecho is a concentrated vegetable mix, a classic Hungarian national dish, with the main ingredients being tomatoes, bell peppers and onions. There are many recipes: ingredients can be raw, boiled, stewed. The structure is heterogeneous, pieces of vegetables are felt; texture - thick, pasty; color - red or orange; taste - sweetish-sourish, spicy; smell - can be either weak or rich, depending on the amount of spices. Served as a condiment, side dish or main dish.
How is lecho done?
The production process is 90% automated. The ingredients come after primary processing, that is, the vegetables have already been washed, household dirt and foreign inclusions have been removed.
The processing line is equipped with the following units
- Pepper cutting machine, washing with removal of the remaining seeds is carried out in a centrifuge with a constant flow of water and a horizontal drum. Interestingly, fruits are placed in special nests by hand.
- Device for peeling and slicing onions.
- Stirrer for mixing prepared vegetables.
- For heat treatment, a blancher or an autoclave with a pressure chamber is used. This way it is possible to preserve the maximum amount of nutrients.
- For the preparation of lecho in industrial conditions, pouring from tomatoes is done separately. Tomato paste comes ready-made, and in order to achieve the desired consistency and taste, heating vessels and stirrers are used.
- The cans are loaded into an automatic dishwasher and additionally sterilized with a steam jet. Then the containers are installed on the carousel installation and filled with vegetable slices. A device for pre-pressing is mounted in the line or this process is carried out manually.
- The filling is piped into a vacuum filler to eliminate the formation of air bubbles during filling.
- The cans of vegetables are directed along the conveyor to the filler, and then to the machine that twists the lids - "twist-off".
- Next, they make lecho like all canned vegetables, that is, they are sent to the autoclave for sterilization, then the cans are washed, dried and labels are glued.
After manufacturing, the products are shipped to the warehouse, where they are installed in boxes with several divisions. The shelf life of lecho is calculated not from the moment of shipment, but from the date of manufacture and placement in the warehouse. Despite the fact that the microclimate of the room is at the level of 8-10 ° C, in the store, conservation is stored at 18-24 ° C.
Before you buy lecho, it is advisable to pay attention to the following signs
- slicing - the larger it is, the tastier the seasoning;
- the type of pieces - they must be crushed to the same size;
- uniformity of the marinade;
- tightness of the package.
The bright red color of the sauce indicates that it contains artificial colors. High-quality shading is moderately red with an orange tint. After opening the can, store it in the refrigerator for no more than 2 days.
How to cook lecho yourself:
- A classic recipe for the winter … First, they are engaged in refueling. Tomatoes (2 kg) are interrupted, add salt (1 tbsp. L. With a slide) and sugar (half a glass), put to simmer on a very small fire, stirring constantly. Bulgarian pepper (color does not matter, but it is better to choose red or green, fleshy, more spicy) cut into petals, removing partitions and seeds. Onions are taken to taste (250-500 g), but you can do without it. If you overdo it with this ingredient, it will taste bitter. Pieces of pepper (2.5 kg) and slicing of onions are dipped in boiling tomato juice and sunflower oil (0.5 cups) is poured, boiled for 30 minutes. It is better to add fire first, and then screw it on. Just before turning off, pour in 1 tbsp. l. vinegar and stir. Poured into sterilized jars and rolled up with lids. For better storage, you can sterilize an additional 15 minutes. Cool the preservation under the blanket by turning the cans over.
- Fresh lecho … All vegetables are washed - however, a good housewife does not need such an instruction. Bulgarian pepper (3 pcs.) Cut into petals or rings, remove seeds and partitions, chop onion (1 head) and sauté in sunflower oil. Grated carrots are sent to him, and then pepper. While everything is stewed under the lid, they are engaged in tomatoes (1 kg). You need to get rid of the skin. To do this, the fruits are dipped in boiling water for 1-2 minutes or rotated in a meat grinder or crushed with a blender and rubbed through a sieve. Pour in tomato sauce, when the peppers and carrots become soft, add the crushed garlic, add salt, pepper, stir for 10-15 minutes. Homemade sauce is almost homogeneous, boiled vegetables. Fresh lecho cannot be stored for a long time.
Additional ingredients of the seasoning can be fresh cucumbers, zucchini, eggplants. You can experiment endlessly with a quick fresh recipe. But in order to make a high-quality home lecho for the winter, you must follow certain cooking rules. Choose fleshy vegetables, peel tomatoes, remove pepper seeds. By the way, tomato paste is often used as a filling - 1.5 kg of tomatoes are replaced by 300 g of paste diluted in 1 liter of water.
If the dish is eaten fresh, then you can use different types of seasonings - fresh herbs, piquant herbs, Provencal mixture, etc. Vinegar is not required, unlike winter preparations. But in them it is better to limit yourself to traditional salt, pepper and garlic. It is better stored this way, and additional flavors are added before serving.
Composition and calorie content of lecho
In the photo lecho
The nutritional value of the seasoning depends on the manufacturing recipe slightly.
The calorie content of lecho is 68-89 kcal per 100 g, of which
- Proteins - 1.2 g;
- Fat - 2.6 g;
- Carbohydrates - 7.2 g;
- Dietary fiber - 1.7 g;
- Ash - 0.9 g;
The rest is water.
Since lecho is most often served at the table in the form of a homemade preparation, we will consider the vitamin and mineral composition of just such a product.
Vitamins per 100 g
- Vitamin A - 531.9 mcg;
- Beta Carotene - 3.192 mg;
- Vitamin B1, thiamine - 0.066 mg;
- Vitamin B2, riboflavin - 0.068 mg;
- Vitamin B4, choline - 1.67 mg;
- Vitamin B5, pantothenic acid - 0.111 mg;
- Vitamin B6, pyridoxine - 0.224 mg;
- Vitamin B9, folate - 9.414 mcg;
- Vitamin C, ascorbic acid - 106.92 mg;
- Vitamin E, alpha tocopherol - 1.696 mg;
- Vitamin H, biotin - 0.411 mcg;
- Vitamin K, phylloquinone - 4.4 mcg;
- Vitamin PP - 0.8791 mg;
- Niacin - 0.711 mg
Macronutrients per 100 g
- Potassium, K - 191.12 mg;
- Calcium, Ca - 13.52 mg;
- Magnesium, Mg - 15.64 mg;
- Sodium, Na - 102.23 mg;
- Sulfur, S - 3.44 mg;
- Phosphorus, P - 25 mg;
- Chlorine, Cl - 163.07 mg.
Microelements per 100 g
- Aluminum, Al - 60.4 μg;
- Boron, B - 28.7 μg;
- Iron, Fe - 0.619 mg;
- Iodine, I - 0.5 μg;
- Cobalt, Co - 1.534 μg;
- Lithium, Li - 1.122 μg;
- Manganese, Mn - 0.0355 mg;
- Copper, Cu - 28.11 μg;
- Molybdenum, Mo - 2.02 μg;
- Nickel, Ni - 3.242 μg;
- Rubidium, Rb - 38.2 μg;
- Selenium, Se - 0.118 μg;
- Fluorine, F - 4.99 mcg;
- Chromium, Cr - 1.25 μg;
- Zinc, Zn - 0.0514 mg.
But the benefits and harms of lecho are due not only to the richest vitamin and mineral complex. The composition contains nonessential and irreplaceable amino acids - 12 and 8 types, respectively, phytosterols, lycopene, pectins, organic acids, essential oils.
There is no need to be afraid, even with daily use you will not gain weight. Homemade lecho contains a small amount of vegetable oil, but this does not mean that harmful cholesterol enters the body.
Fats per 100 g
- Saturated - 0.3 g;
- Monounsaturated - 0.6 g;
- Polyunsaturated - 1.5 g;
- Sterols - 5 g.
Freshly prepared seasoning can be added to diet for weight loss, used to stimulate appetite for patients recovering from debilitating diseases, the elderly and children from the age of 1, 5 years.
Useful properties of lecho
Vegetable Chunks Sauce is a dietary food and helps to deal with many organic problems due to its rich composition.
The benefits of lecho
- It enhances the production of enzymes in the pancreas and stomach, accelerates the digestion of food, stops the putrefactive and fermentative processes of the intestine, and improves the rate of peristalsis.
- Activates metabolism.
- Accelerates the elimination of toxins and toxins.
- It normalizes the work of the cardiovascular system, increases the tone of the capillaries, which improves the quality of the surface epithelium.
- Stimulates the work of hair follicles, prevents separation of nail plates.
- Suppresses the production of atypical cells, reduces the likelihood of the development and degeneration of cancerous tumors.
- Due to the fact that lecho contains a rich complex of B vitamins, regular use normalizes the nervous system, helps to cope with depression and recover from emotional overload, improve sleep and avoid nervous breakdowns.
- Normalizes blood pressure, increases vascular tone.
A high amount of ascorbic acid in the composition of lecho will help activate immunity during the epidemic season, reduce the likelihood of getting sick and avoid complications if it was not possible to prevent the introduction of the virus. Phytosterols, which resemble human hormones in structure, improve the functioning of the endocrine system, prolong youth and preserve female beauty.
Contraindications and harm lecho
With the regular introduction of a vegetable dish into the daily menu, it is worth analyzing your own feelings and monitoring the condition of young children. After all, the red color is a high allergic danger, in addition, there are many hot spices in the composition, which can provoke the development of dysbiosis.
Do not add ingredients that cause an allergic reaction to homemade products. If the diet contains self-prepared lecho, symptoms of individual intolerance - eating disorders and intoxication - can be avoided. However, it is worth considering the possible microbiological danger - botulism develops not only from the use of low-quality canned meat and fish, but also when sanitary and hygienic rules are violated when cutting, twisting and storing home preservation.
While sourness can be identified by its appearance and taste, the bacteria that cause botulism do not affect the appearance and nutritional quality of the product in any way. Therefore, when treating children, pregnant women, women with lactation and persons with weak immunity, it is advisable to pre-sterilize the workpiece at 80 ° C for 30 minutes. The vitamin and mineral complex will suffer slightly, and the amount of lycopene, a substance with antioxidant properties, will only increase. The cotton that appears when you open the can is not a guarantee of quality.
The microbiological hazard of store-bought products is low, but during manufacture, stabilizers, preservatives, and flavorings are necessarily introduced. It is these components that can have a negative effect on the body of persons who are in a "special status" - young children and people with a tendency to frequent allergic reactions. In addition, it should be borne in mind that, despite the GOST lecho 34126-2017 approved in 2017, the recipe may change, albeit slightly.
Unscrupulous manufacturers sometimes introduce additional ingredients, use dried vegetables instead of fresh or frozen vegetables, or introduce dyes. You should be more careful and avoid unfamiliar brands, carefully read before purchasing what is written on the packaging.
Abuse of lecho harm causes with increased sensitivity of the mucous membrane lining the gastrointestinal tract, with exacerbation of peptic ulcer disease or inflammatory processes of the urinary system - with pyelonephritis, cystitis. Do not get carried away with seasoning for chronic pancreatitis and gallstone disease. The property of accelerating bile secretion can provoke the advancement of calculi and cause painful colic.
Lecho recipes
As already mentioned, the seasoning is universal. It can be eaten as a stand-alone dish or used as a side dish or sauce.
Lecho recipes:
- Pork goulash … The pulp (1.5 kg) is cut into small pieces and fried in its own fat. You can first grease a cauldron or a cast iron pot with vegetable oil, just take quite a bit, then the fat will melt and drown out the extraneous taste. When a golden brown crust appears, pour in water (0.5 l), stew for 25 minutes, add pre-fried flour (60 g), salt, pepper. Stir, muffle the fire to a minimum. After 5 minutes, pour in 400 ml of lecho, bring to a boil and stew until the meat is fully cooked. Sprinkle with fresh herbs before serving.
- Pizza with lecho … At home, if you have a pizza base on hand, the dish can be cooked within 15 minutes. Preheat the oven to 190 ° C, put the workpiece on a baking sheet slightly oiled, pour lecho, put fried onions on top, pieces of sausage and sprinkle everything with grated cheese. Once it melts, you can eat it. You can make the base yourself: knead the dough on the basis of flour (2 tablespoons), mayonnaise (2 tablespoons) and one egg, add a little salt. It is better to make pizza from batter in a multicooker or use a silicone mold instead of a baking sheet.
See also how to prepare bell pepper lecho for the winter.
Interesting facts about lecho
Lecho is one of the dishes that does not have a constant classic recipe. It is often compared to ratatouille, but rather it is an adapted version of Italian pisto and Moroccan (Israeli) matbuh sauce. The first mentions of lecho can be found in cookbooks dating from the 17th century, but the name itself appeared only in 1930, and the modern version is found only in cookbooks of 1940. The Globus company began to produce the product under the modern name.
Interestingly, bell pepper, which is considered the main ingredient in the seasoning, is not added to the composition by Hungarian housewives. Bright and juicy Californian pepper is used, which in itself has no aroma, as well as a bright taste. But it retains crispness after heat treatment and has no “competitors” in this quality when fresh.
The taste is added by paprika of the segeda variety, which is harvested before ripening. Due to its special quality - the unique composition of essential oils - no spices are added to the classic sauce, being limited to salt.
The ingredients of later versions of lecho are Moroccan and common onions, bell peppers, red, ripe paprika, garlic, and spices. In the end, the name "lecho" began to be given to all sauces with pieces of vegetables, drenched in tomato sauce. There are even lovers who pour hot pepper pods with tomato.
How to cook lecho - watch the video:
You shouldn't give up on a tasty and healthy addition to your diet. Fresh seasoning will delight in the summer, and canned - will replenish the vitamin and mineral reserve in winter. But if you have a choice, you should give preference to homemade preparations or pay attention to the above recommendations for choosing a store product.
