Roast duck with dumplings and sauerkraut - Czech specials

Description:
Cooking is just as prone to fads and fashions as the clothing industry is. Fortunately there are dishes that are always made no matter what happens to be en vogue. Roast duck with homemade dumplings and sauerkraut is one of them and rightly deserves its place as one of the permanent fixtures in the Czech national cookbook.

Ingredients:
1 duck weighing around 1.8 kg
3 – 4 teaspoons caraway seeds
salt to season

Directions:
Instructions:

Gut and rinse the duck, remove the rump and coat with salt inside and out. Sprinkle with caraway seeds and place on the roasting tray. Pour over a little water then roast on both sides until golden brown. Fattier parts of the bird should be pricked with a fork during roasting so that the fat oozes out. This should be used to baste the duck when still in the oven thus preventing the less fatty parts from drying out. Take the fat off the top of the juices in the bottom of the roasting tray. Pour in some hot water and boil for a short time, then pass through a sieve. Then put the fat back in and mix well.

Sidedish:
The ideal accompaniments to roast duck are bread or potato dumplings and white or red sauerkraut. Other alternatives include boiled potatoes and various salads.

Highland filled steaks - Czech specials

Description:
This pork roll is filled, somewhat surprisingly, with pork mince. But don't worry, the taste is far from boring. The cream and spices in the filling guarantee a superb gastronomic experience!

Ingredients:
600g pork rump
steak
200g pork shoulder
100 ml cream
caraway seeds
paprika
salt
60 g pork fat
200 ml stock

Directions:
Clean the steak with a damp cloth and cut into 4 thin slices, going with the grain of the meat all the time. Soften with a mallet and salt. Take the shoulder and pass through a mincer along with the caraway seeds. Then add salt, paprika and cream, and mix well. Divide the filling into eight parts, putting two on the two edges of each piece of steak so that you can roll up each one into the middle. Put the rolls into a greased baking tin as close together as possible so that they keep their shape during roasting. Roast for about 5 minutes at 250 °C, then turn the heat own to 180 °C. Spoon a bit of the stock over the meat and roast until golden brown. Turn the meat several times, and spoon over the meat juices and stock when needed.

Side dish:
boiled potatoes, potato cakes, potato dumplings, fresh salad, pickles vegetables

Potato cakes - Czech specials

Description:
What’s the most important thing to know when making potato cakes? Serve them straight out of the frying pan! The perfect crispy potato cake is at its best when still hot, and the longer you leave them, the softer they become and the more they lose their best feature (crispiness).

Ingredients:
0.5 kg potatoes
0.5 dcl milk
100 g fine flour
1 egg
2 cloves garlic
pinch salt
marjoram
pepper
2 dcl oil or 200 g fat for frying

Directions:
Finely grate the peeled and washed raw potatoes, then leave to stand for a while. Pour off any liquid that may gather at the bottom of the bowl. Add the milk, flour, eggs, grated garlic, salt, marjoram (which you should rub between your fingers) and pepper. Mix well. Pour some oil into the frying pan (you could use lard as an alternative) and put on the heat. Fry the potato cakes on both sides until golden brown. Remove excess oil by leaving them on a napkin, then serve.

Sirloin in cream sauce - Czech specials

Description:
What comes to mind when you hear the words ‘typical Czech food'? The most popular dish, according to food experts, is sirloin in cream sauce, a delicious combination of tender beef, creamy sauce and, of course, the obligatory dumplings. As is usually the case with traditional recipes, there are probably as many diff erent versions as there are cooks. But this is the real one!

Ingredients:
750 g of the fi nest beef sirloin
150 g of carrots
150 g celery
75 g parsley
1 large onion
50 g bacon chopped into
small wedges
150 g butter
salt
pepper
5 peppercorns
3 allspice berries
3 bay leaves
a pinch of thyme
lemon juice
sugar
100 g of rough mustard
2 tablespoons of plain fl our
250 ml cream
milk for thinning the sauce if
needed
lemon slices
cranberry sauce

Directions:
Clean the meat of any membrane etc, interlayer with the bacon, add salt, pepper and sprinkle on the chopped onion. Add the grated vegetables, spices and a squeeze of lemon juice, then pour over the melted butter. Leave for a day in the fridge. Next day pour a little water over the meat and braise in the oven until soft. Take the meat out and remove the spices, making sure you don't leave the bay leaf in the mixture.

Put the pot containing the vegetables on the stove and bring to the boil. Add the mustard, 2 tablespoons of plain fl our then simmer. Pour in the cream and cook on a medium heat, mixing now and then. If the sauce becomes too thick, dilute with a little milk. Finally pass the sauce through a sieve. Add salt, lemon juice and sugar to taste. To enhance the taste you can add a bit of caramel to the sauce (take a tablespoon of sugar and simmer until it begins to turn brown. Add some water and boil until thick).

Slice the meat into portions, return to the sauce and heat up everything together.

Serve with a slice of lemon and a spoonful of cranberry sauce.

Sidedish:
bread or yeast dumplings