Svíčková na smetaně

Ingredients

• Beef sirloin or topside1.2 kg
• Smoked bacon fat — for larding80 g
• Carrots3
• Celeriac200 g
• Parsley root150 g
• Onions2
• Double cream250 ml
• Wine vinegar3 tbsp
• Allspice, thyme, bay1 tbsp
• Lemon1
• Sugar1 tbsp
• Lingonberry sauceto taste
• Butter60 g

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Lard the beef with strips of smoked fat laid along the grain. Bury it in the grated roots with the spices and vinegar and refrigerate for a day.

   1440 min

2. 2

   Dry the meat and brown it in butter on all sides. Lift it out.

   12 min

3. 3

   In the same pan fry the roots from the marinade with the onion for twenty minutes: they should darken noticeably, which is where the colour comes from.

   20 min

4. 4

   Return the meat, pour in the marinade and enough water to reach the vegetables, and braise covered for two hours over a low flame.

   120 min

5. 5

   Take the meat out, remove the bay and blend the vegetables with the liquid until smooth. Pass it through a sieve: this is the step that separates a home svíčková from a restaurant one.

   15 min

6. 6

   Stir in the cream, lemon juice and sugar, warm it without boiling and taste. Carve the meat across the grain and serve with the sauce, lingonberry and a slice of lemon.

   10 min

About the dish

The sauce of svíčková is vegetables, not flour. Carrot, celeriac and parsley root are braised with the meat for two hours and then blended: the body comes from them.

Acidity is compulsory and arrives from three directions: vinegar in the marinade, lemon in the sauce, lingonberry on the plate. Without it a creamy sauce cloys within three spoonfuls.

The meat marinates for a day in the roots and spices. That is not only about tenderness: over a day the roots give up the flavour that ends up in the sauce.

Worth knowing

• — Carve the meat either fully cooled or after ten minutes of rest, or the juice runs out and it dries.
• — The sauce should read distinctly sweet-sour. If it seems flat, add lemon and sugar alternately, a teaspoon at a time.
• — Shop-bought dumplings are perfectly fine, but steam them rather than microwaving, or they turn rubbery.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

680 kcal

Protein

48 g

Fat

42 g

Carbs

24 g

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• Trdelník — A ribbon of yeasted dough wound round a spit, baked and rolled in sugar and nuts.