Ingredients
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Svíčková: Braised Beef
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1.5 lb beef sirloin (or round rump)
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2 oz bacon fat
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1 cup beef stockor vegetable stock
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Salt & pepper
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1 tbsp vinegar
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1 large carrot
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1 medium root celeriac
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1 medium parsley roots
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1 large onion
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3.5 oz Butter
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10 Black Peppercorns
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4 Allspice Berries
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2 bay leafs
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from 1 lemon Lemon Juiceor 1 tbsp vinegar
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1 cup heavy cream
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if needed all purpose flour
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if needed Sugar
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Bread dumplings:
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2 pinches Salt
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1/2 tsp Ground maceand a bit of turmenic for color and flavor
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2 cups coarse flour (hruba mouka)
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2 cups semi-coarse flour (polohruba mouka)
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1 cup lukewarm milk
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2 tsp Sugar
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3 rolls or bunsthe traditional sized ones, they’re about 70g each
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1 egg
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1 cube fresh yeastor the dried yeast equivalent
Directions
With this particular dish, we take a dip into the Czech passion for creamy sauces. Svíčková got its name from the type of meat dominating this dish, sirloin, and the whole dish translates as roast sirloin in sour cream sauce with dumplings.
Svíčková is very often a source of amusement among English-speaking Czechs, as they tend to comically call it “the candle sauce”, which would be the literal translation.
Should you attend a Czech wedding, there is an 80% chance you will be served this as a main course. Expect a slow-roasted sirloin in a juice/base of carrots, celeriac, parsley root, and onion, which is blended into a very smooth sauce softened with full-fat cream.
The sauce is then poured over the thin slices of tender sirloin, accompanied by the now well-known dumplings, and garnished with cranberry compote and a slice of lemon. Due to the time-consuming and overall difficult nature of this dish, once a girlfriend pulls out a perfect svíčková, she’s believed to be ready for marriage and starting a family.
Preparation:
For Svíčková: Braised Beef
- Lard the meat (prick it with a knife or a big kitchen needle and stuff strips of the bacon fat through the sirloin. If you are using a big piece of meat, freeze the fat beforehand; it is easier to get through the whole length), season with salt and pepper, add the spices, diced root vegetables, lemon juice, and vinegar and pour melted butter over the meat to seal it. Let it marinate in the fridge overnight.
- Add the stock, cover with a lid and braise in the oven at 320° F (160° C) until the meat is very soft—you should be able to cut it with a fork. This usually takes 2-4 hours.
- Remove the meat and press the vegetables through a fine sieve. Use a hand blender if the texture is still not very smooth and creamy.
- Add the cream and bring to boil; add salt, lemon, vinegar or sugar to taste. If the sauce is not thick enough, you can thicken it with a little flour, but hopefully, you can manage without it.
- Cut the sirloin into half-inch thick circles and put them back into the sauce to heat them through. Serve with cranberry preserve. A little dollop of whipped cream in the sauce is also quite a traditional way of servingsvíčková.
For the bread dumplings:
- First, mix the flours with the salt and spices.
- Dissolve the sugar in half the milk, add the crumbled yeast and let it rise for a bit, until “islands” of new yeast start to form on the surface. Pour the egg into the flour, then pour in the milk (bit by bit) and yeast, and knead with your hands. Keep adding the milk until you have a nice dough that’s not too dry and not too sticky (though it can be slightly wetter and stickier than your instinct would suggest—you still have to add the buns that soak up a bit of the milk).
- Cut the rolls or buns into small dices (a little smaller than half an inch cubed). Gently mix the bread into the dough. Then form the dumpling mixture into a roll(s)—a 2-3 inch diameter will give you sufficiently big dumplings after you’ve left the dough to rise for about 45 minutes.
- Gently lower the roll into salted boiling water and cook for 16-19 minutes. You want to take it out before the crust gets slimy. Prick with a fork (this prevents it from collapsing after it cools down a bit).
- When you’re ready to serve, cut the dumpling into circles 2/3 inches thick, preferably using a floss or cheese wire.
