Svíčková is a traditional Czech dish and one of the most popular Czech meals. Beef sirloin is a staple on Czech menus and is served with a thick, creamy vegetable sauce. Traditionally served at weddings and on other special occasions. The term “svíčková” started to apply to the creamy sauce itself rather than to the cut of meat. You can even use different types of meat, but mind you, that won’t be the traditional Czech dish anymore.
In this blog post I will Cover:
What does make this meal so special?
“Svickova” – Beef in Vegetable Sauce is a similar meal for Czechs, as the turkey is for Americans on Thanksgiving day. If you are ready to spend some time in the kitchen cooking or have some major holiday coming up, or even a special guest arriving for a visit, what would you cook? In Czech, you make this special dish.
It is definitely not a 30 min type of meal or easy weeknight dinner.
Old wife’s tale says – “that you are ready to get married if you can cook “Svickova” – Beef in Vegetable Sauce”
I don’t consider this meal a difficult dish to prepare. To some people can be intimidating going through all steps. Traditionally, svickova is made by roasting meat and root vegetables in the oven. If you bake the meat too long, that can dry out the meat a bit. If you switch to an Instant pot recipe, the sauce is a nice thick and creamy full of vegetable flavor, and the meat is not chewy or dry at all.
How I make “Svickova” – Beef in Vegetable Sauce?
I searched through the internet and tried many recipes. I combined many different blog tips and tricks and added my touch, and now I am having good luck, as it always comes out tasty, and my whole family loves it. This is definitely a recipe, and each family will consider it a “family recipe” as each cook will have their own ways to make it.
Lets get cooking
First step: Marinating the meat
Are you excited to start cooking? Gather all ingredients for marinating the meat overnight. It is important to have a good vegetable base for the vegetable sauce and quality meat. It would help if you did not rush anything. The meat I use is a “round top” at Costco, but if you like more fatty meat, you can use rib eye roast as well. Salt and pepper the whole piece of meat. Put into a container and cover with cleaned diced vegetables.
I do skip a step here as I do not see it necessary. The meat should be “poked” with a knife, and in the hole the knife leaves, a piece of pancetta-style bacon is stuffed. This should tenderize the meat further.
- 2 pounds of beef
- 4 carrots
- 1 parsnip
- 1/2 celery root (optional)
- 1 smaller rutabaga (not in traditional sauce)
- 1/2 tsp thyme
- fresh rosemary
- Salt and pepper to taste
Second step: Make a base for the vegetable base
I like to use Instant Pot to make all the cooking easier and a bit faster.
The meat is marinating overnight, and in the morning, pull out instant pot and start working on the base for a sauce.
First, brown meat on melted butter, and sear on all sides till nicely golden brown. When the meat is browned, take the meat out and rest while roasting all veggies and preparing the base.
The pot is left with nice flavorful drips from meat. The brown bits also might be stuck to the bottom, but do not worry that all will get fixed a bit later. Add all veggies into an Instant Pot/Dutch oven and let it sear till all veggies start getting golden color. (about 10 minutes). It is probably starting to stick even more to browned bits from meat to the bottom of the pot. You don’t want to burn it or have burned pieces in your sauce. Add about 1 tbsp of water, and all the grippy stuff will loosen up. It is like magic. The water will evaporate, and the stuck pieces will get loose.
Once the bottom of a pot is clear, and root vegetables are golden, add onion and cook for about 5 minutes to have onion caramelized a bit.
- 1 medium onion chopped
- 2 tbsp butter
- 2 tbsp grapeseed oil (is what I use)
Third step: How to bring flavor to vegetable base
The veggies and onion are a golden color, and nothing is sticking to the bottom anymore—time to add sugar and stir well. Let simmer for about 2 more minutes, till sugar starts caramelizing.
Next, add white vinegar, stir well and let simmer for 5 minutes or till you don’t smell the vinegar aroma anymore. The same goes for mustard; after the vinegar aroma evaporates, add mustard and let the vinegar from mustard evaporate. Lastly, add stock or liquid and let the magic happen. (2 cups in total).
- 1 tbsp of sugar
- 2 tbsp of white vinegar
- 2 tbsp of yellow mustard
- 1/2 cup of dry white wine (optional)
- 1 1/2 of beef stock or you can mix 1-2 tbsp of beef bouillon in 1 1/2 of water
Fourth step: Spices/Cooking
The best way to add spices is to close them into a cheesecloth or a spice ball; that way, you don’t have to fish for every peppercorn in the sauce.
Add the bag or spice ball into your Instant Pot/ Dutch oven along with meat and all juices from the meat.
Close Instant Pot lid, and make sure it is set on “seal,” use the manual setting for pressure for 60 minutes and let it cook. Let the sauce sit under pressure for about 1-2 hours. The meat gets moist and soft.
If using Dutch Oven, put lid on and bake in the oven at 350F for 60-90 minutes.
- 3-5 pieces of bay leaf
- 10 balls of allspice
- 10 balls of peppercorns
- Spring of Thyme
- Spring of Rosemary
Final Step: Finishing the sauce
Take the meat out of the vegetable base and pull out all spices. Use an emerging blender to blend all the vegetables. The sauce should be orange in color. Add your half & half into your sauce to make it creamy.
Sometimes I use heavy cream, which is used in the traditional Czech version, but half and half make the sauce pretty creamy, in my opinion.
Time to add fresh juice from half lemon, salt, and pepper to taste if needed. This sauce is quite thick already due to all veggies, and I never need to add flour to thicken the sauce, which also does change the flavor of the whole sauce.
If you need to use flour to thicken the sauce, know the flavor to be different slightly. (use about 1 tbsp of gluten-free flour whisked into about 1/2 cup of water)
- 1/2 cup of half and half
- fresh juice from half of lemon
- salt and pepper to taste
How to serve: “Svickova” – Beef in Vegetable Sauce
The traditional Czech version meal is served with bread dumplings. Bread dumplings are another pesky Czech recipe that has a long tradition. Not everybody knows how to make them. Do not be scared to make dumplings; follow a couple of basic rules; they are not that hard at all.
Let’s make it easier. I already spent half of the day in the kitchen so our side can be nice tasty pasta or even rice.
If you feel like experimenting a little bit more, this Ease to make Bacon Dumplings would be a perfect side for this sauce as well. They are fast to make and super easy.
Who inspired me?
Suppose you wonder who inspired this delicious recipe. You can find it in one of my Czech cookbooks, “Velká kuchařka Čech a Moravy – Roman Vaněk.” This cookbook is something like a Czech cooking bible. It is full of Traditional Czech recipes. Every recipe I had made so far turned out perfect and delicious.
I order cookbooks from Kosmas bookstore in the Czech, they deliver to the USA for a reasonable price. I am not sure if he has any English versions of books.
But, I did not follow step by step recipe from the cookbook; I do add a couple of my own twists to the “mine” version of this recipe. Also, I add different root vegetables, as in the USA where I live, it is not typical to get celery root unless I go to a special store to search for it, and I like rutabaga. I do not add pancetta to meat and so on…
I hope you did enjoy this Gluten-Free recipe. If you try this recipe, let me know! Leave a comment, please. Thank you so much!
Other easy recipes to try
- Czech Schnitzel – Pork Rizek Everybody’s favorite in the Czech Republic and of course in my family!
- Easy to make Bacon Dumplings The perfect Gluten-Free side dish to go with Stuffed Peppers.
- Creamy Marsala Chicken Soup Do you have a craving for a different creamy meal? If you love Chicken Marsala, this soup is perfect for you!!!!
Until next time…!
DOBROU CHUT!
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Beef in vegetable sauce “Svickova”
Ingredients
Marinate the meat in
- 2 pounds top round beef
- 1 parsnip diced
- 1/2 celery root diced
- 1 smaller rutabaga diced
- 4 carrots diced
- 1/2 tsp of thyme or fresh spring
- 1 rosemary spring
For the sauce
- 1 medium onion chopped
- 2 tbsp butter
- 2 tbsp grapeseed oil (is what I use)
- 1 tbsp of sugar
- 2 tbsp of white vinegar
- 2 tbsp of yellow mustard
- 1/2 cup of dry white wine
- 1 1/2 cup of beef stock or bouillon mixed in water
- 1/2 cup of half and half
- 1/2 lemon fresh juice
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
First day:
- Clean your meat from all unwanted fat, season with salt and pepper on all sides.
- Peel, carrots, parsnip, celery root, rutabaga, and dice. Mix all together.
- Cover your meat in a container with all those diced vegetables, mix in thyme and rosemary.
- Cover and store in the fridge overnight.
Second day:
- melt butter and oil on sear in the instant pot. Brown meat on all sides very well and set aside on a plate till later.
- Add all your diced vegetables from meat marinating and roast till all veggies are starting to get golden. If all the pieces leftover from meat are causing burning on the bottom of your pot, add 1-2 TBSP of water and it will help to loosen it all up. Add your diced onions and sear for another 5 minutes.
- Add your sugar, mix well and let the sugar caramelized, while coating the vegetables. Takes about 5 minutes.
- Pour in your vinegar and mix well. Continue stirring till all vinegar aroma is gone. Takes about 5 minutes.
- Add your mustard and again repeat your step with vinegar. All vinegar smell should be gone. At least most of it.
- Add your wine and beef stock and stir. Add your meat with all the juices in and cover with some of the vegetables.
- Create your spice bag: take a cheesecloth add peppercorns, allspice, and bay leave and tight it. If you have a space ball, just add it to your spice ball. After you are done cooking, will be easy to take out all spices at once.
- Set Instant pot on manual 60-minute pressure. After it's done cooking let it sit as long as possible. 1 – 2 hours would be great or even longer.
- Open the lid, take the meat out on a plate and with emerge blender, blend all vegetables into a beautiful smooth sauce. Don't forget to take out your spices before you start blending.
- Add 1/2 cup of your cream or half and half and juice from the lemon. Salt and pepper if needed.
- Slice your meat and serve with dumplings, rice, or even pasta. ( Pick one 🙂 )
