English Teacher's Blog

Hungarian Lecso - easy to cook, nutritious, colorful, and delicious. The perfect food for winter.

 Well, it’s nearly April and winter still seems to be no closer to an end. Because I love the great outdoors; fishing, gardening, BBQing, cycling – this winter/spring is proving to be a challenge. The best part about winter in my opinion is that spring and summer come after it. For an Aussie boy the Tohoku Winter is hard, hard, hard.

 A few months ago I returned home to Adelaide, Australia with my wife for a couple of weeks to escape the snow and cold. My family is Central European (Hungarian) so we love to eat. Breads, pasta, rice, meats, vegetables, cooked with lots of salt and plenty of oil and fat. So this last time I went home, my mother and father once again went out of their way to make me feel at home, and cooked all of the traditional Hungarian foods that I had been missing while I lived in Japan.

One of the traditional Hungarian dishes we eat in my family is rice dish called Lecsco (latch-o). This is the perfect winter food as it can be made with easily obtained ingredients, is healthy, easy to make, very nutritious, and has wonderful tastes and colors.

 Ingredients (4 serves)

1 can of diced tomatoes

200ml of tomato juice

1 large onion (cut in halves and sliced)

1 egg (beaten)

1 cup of rice

2 capsicums (diced)

2 medium eggplant (diced)

150g pork sausages (sliced into small pieces)

1 tablespoon of powdered paprika

oil

salt

pepper 

Method

1. Add the sliced onion to an oiled fry pan and cook over medium heat for 5 minutes until soft. Add capsicums and cook for 5 minutes.

2. Add the diced tomatoes, tomato juice, sliced sausage, diced eggplant, powdered paprika, salt and pepper. Cook for 5 minutes.

Beautiful colors. Smells pretty good too!

3. Add the rice. Cook 35-40 min over medium heat, stirring occasionally so that the rice doesn’t stick and burn to the bottom of the fry pan.

I know, I know - I didn't wash the rice. Don't let the rice burn to the bottom of the fry pan!

 4. Once the rice has cooked stir the beaten egg into the fry pan over medium heat.

Almost finished. Stir the egg into the hot frypan.

Color change after adding the egg. And we are finished!

Easy to cook and easy to find ingredients, a colorful, tasty and nutritious meal. Serve with some sliced fresh bread and enjoy!

Serve hot with some bread.

Anyone who spends any time at all with me knows that i am a mad, mad fisherman – be it river, ocean, or even on my trusty Nintendo Wii.

One of my favorite haunts is the VERY LONG seawall at the mouth of the Mogami River in Sakata, Yamagata-Ken. This is a seawall of about 2km in length (that is a wild guess) that almost always guarantees a feed of fish if i am willing to work hard enough.

One of my favorite fish to catch in late summer/early autumn is the Barracuda (カマス). These are migratory fish which move in massive schools from the northern Japan sea to the south in the cooler months. When they are biting the action is fast and furious – but as soon as they arrive they are just as easily gone. For example this October i was lucky enough to be at the seawall when a school Barracuda were present. For some 45 minutes i was hauling in 2-3 fish at a time, and then suddenly the fish went quiet – and i caught absolutely nothing for the rest of the day… that’s fishing i guess.

Anyway i had spoken to some old-timers on the seawall and they swore that the only way to eat these fish was as “himono”. A whole cleaned, butterflied fish soaked in salted water and then dried in the sun and wind. As you can see, i didn’t do too badly at my first effort.

On the 6^th of August, my wife and I departed Mogami Town for our honeymoon. We decided to have our honeymoon in Kansai/Chugoku for various reasons: I hate flying, a lack of time to organize an overseas trip, I had never been to Kansai, and we wanted to spend our money in Japan to help (in some small way) the economy given it was hard hit by the March 11^th triple disasters.

Traffic jam - somwhere between Tokyo and Shizuoka-Ken.

Our plan was to drive from Yamagata to Kyoto over 2 days. The weather and scenery was lovely: but the traffic was not. The morning of the 7^th of August saw us stuck in a 4 hour traffic jam during which we traveled a scorching 80 km. Finally after 2 days and nearly 1,000 kilometers of driving and traffic jams we arrived tired but safe in an uncomfortably hot and humid Kyoto.

The next day we took a train for Osaka and then the Hanshin Line for Koshien Stadium – to the National Senior High School Baseball Championships. I am not a baseball fan, but I LOVE the Summer Koshien. The fact that the kids play for sheer love and joy of the game, their school, and teammates is a refreshing change to the jaded prima donnas that populate almost all pro sports these days. The atmosphere was great and watching the teams play their hearts out in a stadium and setting that all Japanese boys dream of playing in one day was a great way to start the day. Osaka was next. We saw Glico Man in Namba, ate okonomiyaki and takoyaki, and went to Osaka Aquarium

Koshien Stadium - Hyogo Prefecture.

Glico Man - Namba, Osaka.

Okonomiyaki - Osaka.

Osaka Aquarium - Osaka.

Over the next few days we saw and tasted the sights in and around Kyoto (Kinkaku-ji, Ginkaku-ji, Kiyomizu-dera, and Sanjusangen-do)  Nara (Todai-ji, Shinyakushi-ji), and Uji (Byodoin,and Uji-Cha).

We also took a day trip on the Shinkansen to Hiroshima. The peace park was a sad, yet hopeful place. Seeing the graphic displays and accounts of the effects of the war and of the atom bomb in the peace museum was sad, but the displays of the subsequent resurrection of Hiroshima and its people from the destruction was a very positive and enlightening experience. Later that day we took the high-speed ferry from the Peace Park to Miyajima to see Itskushishima Shrine and the famous torii. Later we were also treated to a taxi driver who told us his life story and shared his family photos with us while we crawled through the Hiroshima rush-hour.

After spending 6 days in Kansai and Chugoku – it was time for the long drive back to Yamagata. We decided to take the central/northern route which took us through Nagano and Niigata. Along this route we were able to visit some castles, visiting Hikone Castle and Matsumoto Castle.

After 9 days and almost 2,000 km driving we arrived back home on the 14^th of August tired but happy with memories to last 2 lifetimes.

A few weeks ago had the chance to go to the Oshika Peninsula in Miyagi Prefecture and do some volunteer work in Ayukawa Town.

I have fond memories of Ayukawa Town from 4 years ago when i travelled there with my parents to take the ferry across to Kinka-San. Unfortunately since the terrible events of March 11 the gorgeous little fishing port i remember is no longer.

We left Mogami at 8:00 in the morning on Saturday and began the 5 hour drive to Ayukawa. Before the disaster this was a 2 1/2 hour drive – but now with damaged roads, SDF vehicles, support vehicles, and other volunteers the roads are very congested.

By the time we arrived it was already 3 o’clock so we set up camp and began making preparations for dinner. The next day was going to be an early start for all of us.

I was up at the break of dawn and was treated to a wonderful sight – the sun rising over the Pacific Ocean and Kinka-San. I am not a guy that is really big on displays of natures majesty but – this was one of the few times i can honestly say a view has taken my breath away.

We spent that day at an egg farm which had been heavily damaged by the earthquake. The farm itself was on high ground – thus any damage was caused by the earthquake. 3 silos full of chicken feed were spilled on the ground when their stoppers failed. So, for a good 8 hours a crew of about 8 of us donned overalls, gloves, masks and shoveled chicken feed. The smell was unspeakable – 2 months worth of fermented wheat and corn chicken feed that had been rained on and that had been fermenting in the sun, coupled with dozens of dead chickens – NOT NICE! But after shoveling for about 1 hour one got used to it.

By the time it was time to go home around 3 o’clock we accomplished our goal – the feed was all gone. It was time to go home and take a well earned rest – but in the full knowledge that the people who live in the disaster areas can’t get any rest from the reality of their situation and the events on and since March 11th. So, i took a rest in the full knowledge that i want and that i will be back in the future to help.