Svíčková

Svíčková: Step by Step

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1. Make small incisions all over the beef with a thin knife and push the bacon strips into them. Season the joint well.

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2. Brown the beef hard in the butter in a heavy casserole on all sides, about 10 minutes, then lift it out.

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3. Add the diced bacon, carrots, celeriac, parsnips and onions and cook 15 minutes until deeply coloured.

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4. Add the bay, allspice, peppercorns and thyme, then sit the beef on top of the vegetables.

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5. Pour in the stock — it should come a third of the way up the meat — cover, and cook at 150°C / 300°F fan for 2 hours.

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6. Lift the beef out and rest it, covered.

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7. Fish out the bay leaves and blend everything left in the pot until completely smooth, adding a little stock if it is too thick.

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8. Return the sauce to the pan, add the cream, vinegar and sugar, and simmer 10 minutes. Taste and balance — it should be sweet, sour and rich in that order.

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9. Slice the beef thinly against the grain and warm it through in the sauce off the heat.

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10. Serve with bread dumplings, a spoonful of cranberry, a lemon slice and a swirl of whipped cream on each plate.

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What Can Go Wrong

1. Lard the beef. It is the difference between moist and dry after two hours.
2. Blend the vegetables into the sauce — that is the thickener.
3. Balance with vinegar and sugar at the end, tasting as you go.

Swaps and Variations

• In a sauce, full-fat crème fraîche can usually take the place of the double cream; single cream is thinner and more likely to split if it boils, so keep it below a simmer.

Good to Know About Svíčková

The sauce is the dish: the root vegetables that cooked under the beef are blended into it, which is why it needs no flour and tastes sweet and savoury at once. A splash of vinegar and a spoonful of cranberry at the end are traditional and necessary — the cream and root vegetables are sweet enough to need cutting.

On the Table Alongside

Bread dumplings · A Czech pilsner · Cranberry sauce

Storing Leftovers

Refrigerate up to 4 days and freeze 3 months. Reheat the beef in the sauce, gently.

What's in a Serving

No nutrition figures are given for this recipe: they cannot be worked out reliably from its ingredient list (some ingredient lines cannot be read). Why some recipes have none.

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