Recipe: Vegan Spicy Leczo

vcinnamongirl
Oct 21, 2022
3 min read

Updated: Jan 25

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If you like spicy and rich pepper and tomato sauce, you'd LOVE Hungarian Leczo.

Traditional leczo is a bit similar to shakshuka, which is served on breakfast menus in restaurants in Israel: The original version of leczo is eggs in tomato and peppers sauce. However, not only the traditional leczo is spicier and more rich with a veriaty of peppers than traditional shakshuka, it contains bacon, sausages and pieces of smoked ham and pastrami, and the eggs are mixed to thicken up the sauce, instead of being fried like shakshuka.

Cinnamon Girl's VEGAN RECIPE is just as rich as spicy as the origional leczo.

Leczo is cooked in every Hungarian home.

6-8 servings

Ingredients:

300 grams of plain seitan, sliced to thin pieces

1/4 cup of vegetable oil

2 medium size chopped onions

4 medium size green peppers

4 medium size red peppers

4 medium size yellow peppers

4 medium size orange peppers

1 chopped garlic head

2 hot green peppers

2 chilly peppers

1/2 kg chopped fresh tomatoes, or a can of canned tomatoes

4-5 TBSP of chickpea flour

Spices:

2 TBSP of smoked paprika

1 TBSP of grill seasoning

1 TBSP hot paprika

1 TBSP sweet paprika

1 dried chilly pepper

1/2 TBSP dried basilicum

5 English peppers

4 bay leaves

salt&peppers

*In case you really miss the eggs flavor: add Indian sault

Instructions:

1. Mix 1 TBSTP of smoked paprika with grill seasoning.

2. Add the vegetable oil to the seasoning and mix.

3. Add the seitan, mix and make sure it's all covered in marinade. Leave for 30 minutes.

4. frie the seitan in a wide pot until it becomes a bit crunchy.

5. Add the onion and keep frying until the onion becomes a bit golden.

6. In the meantime, slice the peppers to nice long pieces and chop the hot and chilly peppers to thin pieces.

6. Add the peppers, garlic, chilly peppers, and hot peppers and stir on high heat.

7. Lower the heat, add the spices, the tomamoes and mix.

8. Cover the pot and cook for about an hour on low heat. Mix once in a while

9. Pour about 1/2 cup of the sauce into a soup bowl, add chickpea flour and mix until you get the texture of a batter.

10. add the batter to the pot, and mix with the sauce.

11. Repeat phases 9-10 until the sauce becomes thicker.

Serving:

Israelis like eating shakshuka for breakfast with mixed salad, tahini and bread on the side. Same can be done with leczo. In Hungary, leczo is served as a sauce on top or rice, mashed potatoes or nokedli (hand-made Hungarian noodles, which the recipe will also be published here soon).

Another option: leczo also tastes good when served cold, which is why you could always apply to your kids' sandwiches for a delicious and high nutrition value lunch at school, without worrying about life-risking allergans.

*Bonus:

If you like your food extremely hot and spicy, you could always add more hot peppers to your leczo. In Hungary, leczo is made with at least 5 different kinds of fresh hot peppers and 5 different kinds of paprika which are hard to find outside of Hungary. Which is why it's highly reccomended to enjoy a spicies and richer leczo at good restaurants while visiting there.

Another benifit of leczo: You can store it in jars in your freezer and serve reheated. It will still be delicious.