Svíčková Sauce

6 SERVINGS

Do hodinky

Buy all ingredients right below the recipe

INGREDIENTS

100 g lard
6 bay leaves
10 allspice berries
10 black peppercorns
1 sprig fresh rosemary
5 sprigs fresh thyme
250 g peeled carrots
200 g peeled celery
200 g peeled parsley
200 g apples, cored
salt
1.5 tablespoons lard
60 g butter
100 g granulated sugar
2 tablespoons full-fat mustard
100 ml vinegar
150 ml dry white wine
1 lemon
3 tablespoons roux
ground pepper
1.2 kg beef shoulder, faux tenderloin, or round
300 g peeled onions
250 ml cream, min. 31%

YOU WILL ALSO NEED

kitchen string

ALTERNATIVE SIDE DISH

Carlsbad dumpling
cranberry jam

PAIRING THE DISH WITH BEER

This dish is best enjoyed with a glass of well-chilled beer.

The assortment range depends on your location. Please enter your address to see what goods we offer in your area.

INSTRUCTIONS

1
Cut the lard into sticks 0.5 cm wide and 4 cm long and place them in the freezer for 15 minutes. Tie the spices and herbs tightly in gauze or cloth. Cut the carrot, celery, and parsley into cubes with a 1 cm edge. Coarsely chop the onion. Peel the apple and cut the flesh into 1 cm cubes.
2
In several places, cut pockets in the meat with a narrow knife, into which you insert the frozen lard sticks. Salt the meat thoroughly and season with freshly ground pepper on all sides. Heat the lard in a pot over high heat and brown the meat on all sides. Remove the meat to a clean plate.
3
Reduce the heat to half, add butter to the pot, and possibly the lard left from larding the meat. Add the carrot, celery, and parsley and sauté them until golden brown, stirring frequently. Add the onion and sauté until golden brown. Add the apple and sauté until golden brown as well. Stir frequently.
4
Add sugar, stir, and let it dissolve. Add mustard and the spice bag. Mix well. Pour in the vinegar and let it evaporate completely, so only fat remains at the bottom of the pot. No liquid. Pour in the wine and let it reduce to half its volume. Add the meat and pour hot water over it so that it is almost submerged. Add 1 teaspoon of salt.
5
Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to a minimum, cover with a lid, and let it simmer slowly for 2.5 hours or until the meat is completely tender. Then remove the spice bag and the meat, which you set aside in a warm place.
6
Grate the yellow part of the peel from half of a washed lemon on a fine grater and add it to the sauce along with the roux. Mix, bring to a boil, reduce the heat to a third, and cook for 15 minutes.
7
Remove a third of the vegetables from the sauce with a flat sieve and discard. Pour the cream into the sauce, blend the remaining vegetables in the sauce until smooth, and strain through a fine sieve into a clean pot.
8
Season the sauce with salt and a little lemon juice to taste and stir. Slice the meat and warm it in the finished sauce. Serve with cranberry jam and Carlsbad dumplings.

Tip

At the beginning, after larding the meat, you can tie it with kitchen string to give it a cylindrical shape, which will look better on the plate. Working with frozen lard is easier when larding the meat. If you tie the spices and herbs in gauze, it will be easier to remove them from the sauce, and you won't have to fish them out individually. Don't be afraid to discard a third of the vegetables before blending. In their entirety, they have imparted their flavor to the sauce. If you blend all the vegetables into the sauce, the resulting taste would be too vegetable-like, and the sauce unnecessarily thick. Use fresh heavy cream. Low-fat 12% creams will curdle in the sauce. Grate only the yellow part of the lemon peel, the white part is bitter. Instead of beef shoulder, you can use beef round. You can also use venison or deer leg. In that case, add 3–4 juniper berries to the bag with herbs and spices. If you want a stronger sauce, use beef broth instead of water. Svíčková tastes best the next day. For preparation, you will need gauze or a clean white cloth, kitchen string, an immersion blender, and a strainer. The best side dish for svíčková is Carlsbad dumplings, which you can prepare at home according to Roman Vaněk's recipe, available on Rohlík Chef in the side dishes category.

Roman Vaněk

With Rohlik, we have put together a selection of the most popular recipes from my cookbooks and linked them with the right ingredients. Let us know how your dish turned out #rohlikchef