Sweet pepper in tomato sauce is one of the most popular blanks for winter. Someone prefers Bulgarian lecho, someone more like pepper in Odessa. The recipes of these blanks are similar, but when preparing the latter, the main ingredient undergoes less heat treatment, which leaves it more crisp. Tomato filling in the mentioned snack options has a different taste. Lecho is served as a single appetizer, pepper in Odessa is taken out of the sauce before serving, the sauce itself is used separately: they drink it instead of juice, add it to soups, and they cook second courses.
Cooking Features
The process of cooking pepper in Odessa for the winter is not complicated, the cooking technology does not even provide for the sterilization of snacks in banks. The task will be feasible even for a novice chef, who has no experience in home canning. The result will justify the expectations if several points are taken into account when preserving pepper in Odessa.
- To cook pepper in Odessa, you should choose fleshy fruit, then the output of the snack will be large, and it will be tastier. If red pepper is used for lecho treatment, the fruits of different colors are used for pepper in Odessa.
- Tomato juice or tomato puree is the basis for pouring. It is made from peeled tomatoes. It will be easier to peel off the skin if you cut it crosswise, put the fruit in boiling water, boil it for 2-3 minutes and put it in a container filled with cold water. Peeled tomatoes can be minced using a meat grinder or blender. Some housewives cut unpeeled tomatoes in half and rub them on a grater. The result is the same, as the tomato skin does not pass through the cells of the grater anyway.
- The appetizer will be more delicious if you add dried herbs to it: basil, oregano, parsley. It is not forbidden to add ground pepper, cloves and other spices. Sometimes carrots are added to improve the flavor of the tomato paste.
- Banks for pepper in Odessa should be thoroughly washed and sterilized. The lids are also sterilized (by boiling). Plastic caps do not close this snack. Only metal covers are available to ensure tightness.
It is recommended to keep pepper in a cool room in Odessa, but experience shows that canned food, which is closed according to all the rules, is well worth it even at room temperature.
Pepper in Odessa with tomatoes
Ingredients (4-4, 5l):
- Bulgarian pepper - 3 kg;
- tomatoes - 2 kg;
- sugar - 0, 3 kg;
- salt - 40 g;
- apple cider vinegar (6%) - 50 ml;
- vegetable oil - 0, 2 liters.
Method of preparation:
- Peppers wash. Remove them from the stalk and seeds. Cut the fruit into large chunks, divided into 4-6 parts.
- Wash tomatoes, dry with a napkin.
- Grind grated.
- Tomato puree mixed with salt and sugar, pour oil into it.
- Place the cooked mixture in a saucepan, put on a slow fire.
- Bring the mashed potatoes to a boil. Boil, stirring for 5 minutes.
- Dip the pieces of pepper into the tomato puree, drown them in it. Wait for the mixture to boil again, boil the pepper for 10 minutes.
- Pour in the vinegar, stir, remove the appetizer from the heat.
- Wash with soda and sterilize the jars, boil suitable lids.
- Fill jars with snacks right under the neck, roll up.
- Turn the jars. If you want the pepper to remain crispy, leave them to cool in natural conditions. If the crispness of the peppers is not critical for you, wrap the cans so that they gradually cool down under the conditions of a steam bath - this will increase the resistance of canned food to unfavorable storage conditions.
Due to the fact that the pepper is cut for snacks large, and not cooked for long, it retains its elasticity. Because of this, the taste of the dish is unique and appeals to many.
Odessa Pepper in Tomato Juice
Composition (for 2, 5-3 l):
- sweet pepper - 2, 5 kg;
- tomato juice - 0.5 l;
- vegetable oil - 0, 2 l;
- table vinegar (9 percent) - 20 ml;
- sugar - 0, 2 kg;
- salt - 20 g.
Method of preparation:
- Wash peppers, blot with a napkin. Peel vegetables from seeds while removing the stem. Cut the fruit lengthwise into 4 pieces.
- Boil the juice, add salt and sugar to it, boil for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Put pieces of pepper in boiling juice, cook for 10 minutes.
- Pour in vinegar, stir. Wait for the sauce to boil again. Remove from heat.
- Spread the peppers in sterilized jars, pour the juice in which they were stewed.
- Hermetically seal the cans, turn them over. Cover with a blanket and leave to cool in this form.
Snacks are good at room temperature. After cooling it can be removed to the pantry or any other place where you used to store supplies for the winter.
Pepper in Odessa with carrots
Composition (4 liters):
- carrots - 1 kg;
- tomatoes - 2, 5 kg;
- sweet pepper - 1, 5 kg;
- sugar - 120 g;
- salt - 80 g;
- vegetable oil - 100 ml;
- dried basil - 5 g;
- black ground pepper - 5 g;
- Apple Cider Vinegar (6%) - 40 ml.
Method of preparation:
- Scrape carrots, wash, dry with a napkin. Cut into small pieces, mince.
- Pour the boiled water over the tomatoes, peel, cut into slices and turn into mashed potatoes using a blender.
- Combine tomato mashed potatoes with carrots, add butter, ground pepper, dried basil, sugar and salt to them, mix.
- Place the saucepan with the vegetable sauce on the stove, boil it for 10 minutes.
- Pepper, cleared of seeds, cut into large pieces of the same shape, immerse in the sauce, wait until it boils again.
- Cook the pepper in the sauce for 10 minutes, pour the vinegar into the appetizer, stir and simmer for another 2-3 minutes.
- Spread the appetizer in prepared jars, tightly close them with metal lids.
- Turn over, leave to cool.
The sauce in this appetizer has a thicker texture and richer flavor. Canned food, closed according to this recipe, is well worth it at room temperature.
There is another Bulgarian pepper recipe, according to which it is not preserved, but frozen for the winter. To do this, peppers are cleared of seeds, cut in half and baked in the oven. Baked pepper is placed in a bag, after cooling it is cleaned from the skin. Next, pepper sprinkle oregano, put in a container and clean in the freezer.
Pepper in Odessa is a favorite snack, as the main ingredient in it retains the original taste. There are several options for this dish. Many of them resemble lecho, for others the peppers are baked and frozen.
