Coping with quarantine

Lecsó - tomato and paprika stew (for 4 people)

Preparation time: approximately 25-30 min

Ingredients:
1.5 kg (pointed) pepper, cut into rings
3 large onions, sliced
4-5 large tomatoes, chopped
1 tablespoon (Hungarian) sweet paprika powder
Lard (traditional) or vegetable oil

1. In a large skillet, sauté the onions on some oil until they become translucent (8-10 min). Make sure to cook them, don't fry or burn them. They should be nice and soft.

Here comes the secret of cooking with paprika powder. This step is missing from many English language recipes you can find out there, but in fact makes or breaks a dish that uses paprika powder. Without this, you won't really taste the sweet paprika flavour and the end result could be underwhelming. Here it comes: the paprika powder needs to be dissolved in oil or fat in order to bring out its real flavours. Remember this whenever you cook a dish that contains sweet paprika powder. There is, however, a specific way to do this. I'll explain in the next step of our recipe.

2. When the onions are soft, add the paprika powder to the hot pan, stir it for 2-3 seconds and remove it from the heat. You need to be quick with this, the paprika powder will burn and taste bitter otherwise.

3. Add the chopped peppers with some salt, cover the pan with a lid  and cook on low heat for about 15 minutes. Stir it occasionally. If it's starting to stick to the bottom of the pan, lower the heat and/or add very little (1-2 tablespoons) water to prevent it from burning.

4. When the peppers are somewhat soft, add the chopped tomatoes and cook on low heat for another 15 minutes.

As a result, you should get a soft, silky stew. Enjoy it with plain white bread or throw some eggs over it to have an upgraded scrambled egg. My favourite way to eat it, however, is how it's mostly done in the eastern regions of Hungary: with sour cream (you can replace it with creme fraiche or yoghurt) and crusty white bread.