Rich and smoky and spicy

Behold my original copy of Mom's Lecho recipe:

I still make lecho exactly this way, although I do not use Echrich sausage, but a spicy double smoked garlic sausage I buy at the West Side Market. The other day, I posted briefly on the Evil Overlord Site facebook about how I was making lecho and how the house was filled with a wonderful aroma. A few people asked for the recipe, hence this entry.

My hot peppers didn't seem quite hot enough, so I used Skyline's Hot Sauce instead of Tabasco. That Skyline sauce is hot as hell and I think it made a difference. The lecho was rich and smoky and spicy. It was, indeed, some of the best lecho I've ever made.

I do not take making lecho lightly. It's one of the things I do when nothing makes sense in the world and I don't know how to fix anything or what to do with myself. Making lecho is like going to the Cleveland Museum of Art and ambling through Armor Court or saying hi to The Thinker. It's like eating a falafel sandwich on the balcony of the West Side Market.

Making lecho resets my head. It gives me something to hang onto when I feel like I'm floating away.

The funny thing about The Irish Hungarian Guide to the Domestic Arts is not just that it's funny (and it is), but the whole book is about those sorts of things--things like lecho that keep us in touch with who we are, who we've been and what we'll be in the future. My own full blown recipe for lecho is in the book, complete with all the asides and commentary that fills out a recipe, which (if you do it right) should always be more than a recipe.

Yeah, yeah, here's an excerpt of my expanded lecho recipe from The Irish Hungarian:

*  *  *

When I make Hungarian lecho (pronounced letch-oh, sometimes spelled lecsó), not only am I a control freak on the hand-dice of the peppers and onion, I get all the ingredients prepared and lined up like some miserable Next Food Network Star wannabe, which is the modern reference. If you're old school, you'll remember how the TV chefs would step onto the kitchen set and all these neat little bowls filled with chopped whatnot would be in front of them ready to go. The Cajun Cook (Justin Wilson) or the Galloping Gourmet (Graham Kerr) would make everything look oh-so-easy while we real Real Housewives knew that backstage, some poor lackey was slicing his fingers to shreds as he carved out interior pepper ribs and cried his eyes out over a pile of minced onions.

Welcome to the real world, sugartits.

*  *  *