Oh so good, but don’t make this for gentile company… because eating it is sloppy. I was long gone from the table and Jimre was still working on it. He ate it with knife and fork. As he said it was very tasty.
I got some mild Italian sausage meat [not the actual sausages] wanting to make sausage rolls. But it was more than I needed hence my thought drifted to lecsó. It ended up being a cross between lecsó, the Hungarian version or ratatouille, and ragu. Plus I just pulled a couple of French breads out of the oven and the next thing is two substantial sloppy Joes are on the table.
The prep is similar to lecsó, incorporating the sausage meat of course. The vegetables are diced uniformly with added caraway seed, mustard, brown sugar and a stalk of celery. The bun should be Kaiser or 2 slices of French bread as it is here.
Hungarian Sloppy Joe
220 g mild Italian sausage meat [mine was Johnsonville]
2 Tbsp oil
1/2 onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
2 large or 3 medium sized tomatoes, chopped
1 red pepper, diced
1 yellow pepper, diced
salt and pepper to taste
1 tsp Hungarian paprika
1 tsp mustard
1 tsp brown sugar
1 stalk of celery, diced
2 Kaiser rolls or 2 slices of French bread as long as wide
• Heat the oil on medium high in a large non stick sauté pan.
• Add the onion and the garlic and sauté until translucent.
• Add the sausage meat and break it up with a wooden spoon.
• Cook stirring until no longer pink.
• Add the rest of the ingredients except the celery and the Kaisers.
• Stir to combine and place a lid on the top.
• Slowly simmer until tomatoes break down.
• Remove the lid and continue to cook until the liquid is reduced, still moist but almost all the liquid is gone.
• Add the diced celery slices and stir for two minutes. This will give a nice crunch to the lecsó.
• Divide the lecsó between two kaisers.
