At the end of summer, when the pepper plants are pulled from the garden there is an overabundance of tiny peppers. That is when I cook up a huge pot of lecsó. I give some to my son in-law and still it lasts us several days. We eat it with rice, with mushrooms and with potatoes. The last day it looked like we won’t be able to eat lecsó again, then the idea popped into my head to use it as a pizza topping. It was a hit! And an original idea, or so I thought, to merge a Hungarian classic with an Italian. Then I discovered there are pizza recipes on line with Hungarian lecsó. Except all call for cheese on the top, which I think is a grave mistake. To tell you the truth I would not complicate my life by making lecsó only to spread it on a pizza. But to use up a leftover it makes perfect sense. Only not with cheese.
PEPPER STEW PIZZA
3/4 cup bread flour
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 heaping tsp instant yeast
2 Tbsp oil
1/2 cup lukewarm water
and
1 batch of lecsó
- Place the flours sugar, salt and instant yeast in a large bowl.
- Add the oil and the lukewarm water.
- Mix well.
- Let dough rest for 10 minutes.
- Place dough on a floured board and kneed until elastic.
- Cover dough and let it rise for 1-1/2 hours.
- Punch down and roll the dough to fit a medium size sheet pan.
- Lightly oil the sheet pan and lay in the dough.
- Turn the edges under.
- Spread it with lecsó.
- Let the dough rise.
- Bake at 400F for 25 minutes or until golden.
