Lecsó is a thick, Hungarian vegetable stew which features green and/or white peppers (no bell peppers), as well as tomato, onion, salt, sugar and ground sweet and/or hot paprika as a base recipe. Garlic can also be a traditional ingredient.

Most Hungarian recipes recommend the mildest variant of Hungarian wax peppers and I would have to second that idea.

This is a childhood dish for me. At home it was served with sausages (all of us), potatoes (my dad and my sister) or bread (me). I haven’t found a sausage here in Sweden that is similar in taste and texture to those back in Germany, so I tend to leave those out. As for potatoes and bread … in starch-free living there is no place for them.

• wax peppers (I also used a few green banana peppers)
• onions
• tomato paste
• tomatoes
• salt, pepper, paprika powder
• a bit of butter

Start with cleaning the peppers and onions and cut them all in small(-ish) pieces. The old Hungarian granny that gave me this recipe years ago recommended an almost 50/50 deal between onions and peppers (although I tend to go for more peppers).

Sauté the onions in a bit of butter or oil. Add the paprika powder, but stir continuously (the powder burns easily and then the dish becomes really bitter and quite uneatable). Add a bit of tomato paste and stir. Add the peppers and stir occasionally for about 5 minutes.

Clean the tomatoes and add. (Here I skinned the tomatoes and took the seeds out.) Stir and simmer until everything is soft. It should look like a proper stew.

Enjoy.