Česká kuchyně · The Bohemian Table

Bohemian Cooking Without Vegetable Oil

Step into the old kitchens of Bohemia, where Sunday svíčková simmers over butter roasted roots, bramborové knedlíky wait beside the braising pot, and the vánočka is braided rich with butter. Honest ingredients and deep flavor, the way the Czech table has always been set.

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Butter◆ Sádlo (Lard)
An elegantly plated Bohemian dish on a dark wooden table
◆ Svíčková na smetaně
From the recipe collection
Máslo

Butter First

Bohemia's cooking was built on butter from village dairies. Every sauce, dumpling, and braided loaf in this collection begins with it, never with a refined seed oil.

Sádlo

Honest Lard

Sádlo, the slowly rendered lard of the Czech larder, crisps onions to a bronze that carries a whole plate of lentils and browns a roast the way no vegetable oil can.

Nikdy

Never Vegetable Oil

No seed oils, no shortcuts. Only the traditional fats that the hospody and home kitchens of Bohemia have trusted for generations.

◆
From Our Kitchen

Czech Bohemian Recipes

Six beloved dishes from the tables of old Bohemia, each cooked with the honest fats that bring out the best in every ingredient.

Neděle Svíčková na smetaně, sliced beef in a velvety cream sauce on a warm plate

Svíčková na smetaně

Beef in velvet root cream sauce

3 hr·6 servings·Medium

The crown of the Bohemian Sunday table. Beef braised slowly over butter roasted root vegetables, the sauce blended silky with cream and brightened with lemon and cranberries.

Ingredients

  • 1.2 kg beef sirloin or rump, in one piece
  • Salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • 3 tbsp sádlo (lard), for searing
  • 60 g butter
  • 2 carrots, 1 parsley root, and a quarter celeriac, roughly diced
  • 1 large onion, quartered
  • 2 bay leaves, 6 allspice berries, 8 black peppercorns
  • 1 tbsp sugar
  • 250 ml heavy cream, plus a squeeze of lemon
  • Bread dumplings and cranberry preserve, to serve

Instructions

  1. Season the beef generously and sear it on all sides in the sádlo in a heavy pot until deeply browned. Lift it out.
  2. Add the butter to the same pot and roast the root vegetables and onion until they take on real color, about 10 minutes.
  3. Sprinkle in the sugar and let it caramelize, then add the spices and return the beef to the pot.
  4. Pour in water to come halfway up the meat, cover, and braise gently for about 2 hours until tender, turning once.
  5. Lift out the beef and the bay leaves, then blend the vegetables and cooking juices until completely smooth.
  6. Stir in the cream, warm the sauce through without boiling, and season with salt and a squeeze of lemon.
  7. Slice the beef across the grain, nap it with the sauce, and serve with bread dumplings and a spoon of cranberries.
Rybník Kapr na másle, a fish fillet glazed with foaming butter and herbs

Kapr na másle

Pond carp in foaming butter

35 min·4 servings·Easy

The pride of South Bohemia's carp ponds. Fillets cooked gently in butter with caraway and lemon until the flesh turns pearly, finished with parsley and browned butter from the pan.

Ingredients

  • 4 carp fillets, about 180 g each (trout works beautifully too)
  • Salt and white pepper
  • 2 tbsp plain flour, for dusting
  • 130 g butter, divided
  • 1 tsp caraway seeds
  • Juice of half a lemon
  • 3 tbsp parsley, chopped
  • Lemon wedges, to serve
  • Boiled potatoes turned in butter, to serve
  • A few sprigs of dill (optional)

Instructions

  1. Pat the fillets very dry, season both sides, and dust them lightly with flour.
  2. Melt 80 g of the butter in a wide pan over medium heat until it foams, and scatter in the caraway.
  3. Lay in the fillets skin side down and cook 4 to 5 minutes until the skin is golden and crisp.
  4. Turn carefully and cook 2 to 3 minutes more, spooning the foaming butter over the fish as it finishes.
  5. Lift the fillets onto warm plates, add the remaining butter to the pan, and let it turn a light hazelnut brown.
  6. Pull the pan off the heat, add the lemon juice and parsley, and spoon the butter generously over the fish. Serve with potatoes and lemon.
Statek Čočka na kyselo, a rustic bowl of Bohemian lentils with vegetables

Čočka na kyselo

Sour lentils with lard fried onions

50 min·4 servings·Easy

The farmhouse dish every Czech eats for luck in the new year. Brown lentils turned gently sour with vinegar, thickened with a butter roux, and crowned with onions crisped in sádlo and a fried egg.

Ingredients

  • 300 g brown lentils, rinsed
  • 2 bay leaves
  • Salt and black pepper
  • 40 g butter
  • 2 tbsp plain flour
  • 2 to 3 tsp good vinegar, to taste
  • 3 tbsp sádlo (lard)
  • 2 onions, sliced into thin rings
  • 4 eggs, fried in butter, to serve
  • Pickled gherkins, to serve

Instructions

  1. Simmer the lentils with the bay leaves in fresh water for 25 to 30 minutes until tender but not collapsing. Drain, keeping a cup of the cooking water.
  2. Melt the butter in the empty pot, stir in the flour, and cook the roux to a pale gold.
  3. Whisk in the reserved cooking water until smooth, then return the lentils to the pot.
  4. Season with salt, pepper, and the vinegar, tasting until the lentils are pleasantly sour, and simmer 5 minutes more.
  5. Meanwhile heat the sádlo in a small pan and fry the onion rings slowly until deep bronze and crisp.
  6. Serve the lentils topped with the lard fried onions, a butter fried egg, and a gherkin on the side.
Šumava Kulajda, a creamy dill and mushroom soup in a rustic bowl

Kulajda

Creamy dill and mushroom soup

45 min·4 servings·Easy

The beloved soup of the Šumava forests. Potatoes and mushrooms in a cream broth sharpened with vinegar and heaped with fresh dill, each bowl finished with a softly poached egg.

Ingredients

  • 500 g waxy potatoes, diced
  • 250 g mushrooms, sliced (forest mushrooms if you can)
  • 60 g butter
  • 2 tbsp plain flour
  • 1 litre water or light vegetable broth
  • 200 ml heavy cream
  • 1 tsp caraway seeds
  • 2 to 3 tsp vinegar, to taste
  • A generous bunch of fresh dill, chopped
  • 4 eggs, for poaching

Instructions

  1. Melt the butter in a soup pot and cook the mushrooms until their moisture is gone and they smell sweet.
  2. Stir in the flour and cook 2 minutes, then whisk in the water or broth until smooth.
  3. Add the potatoes and caraway and simmer about 15 minutes until the potatoes are tender.
  4. Stir in the cream, season with salt, and sharpen the soup with vinegar, tasting as you go.
  5. Poach the eggs in barely simmering water for 3 to 4 minutes while the soup finishes.
  6. Stir most of the dill into the pot, ladle the soup into bowls, and slide a poached egg into each.
  7. Scatter with the remaining dill and serve at once with dark bread.
Pekárna Vánočka, golden braided bread resting on a bakery board

Vánočka

Braided butter bread of Bohemia

4 hr·1 loaf·Medium

The festive braid that crowns the Czech Christmas table, worth baking all year. A rich yeasted dough of butter, egg yolks, and lemon zest, studded with raisins and almonds and braided tall.

Ingredients

  • 500 g plain flour
  • 7 g instant yeast
  • 80 g sugar
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 220 ml warm whole milk
  • 120 g soft butter, plus more for the tin
  • 2 egg yolks, plus 1 whole egg for the glaze
  • Zest of 1 lemon and a pinch of nutmeg
  • 80 g raisins, soaked in warm water and drained
  • 50 g flaked almonds

Instructions

  1. Whisk the flour, yeast, sugar, and salt, then add the warm milk, soft butter, egg yolks, lemon zest, and nutmeg and knead 10 minutes to a supple dough.
  2. Work in the raisins, cover, and let the dough rise about 1 hour 30 minutes until doubled.
  3. Divide into 9 strands. Braid 4 strands for the base, 3 for the middle, and twist 2 for the top.
  4. Stack the braids, securing them with skewers if needed, and let the loaf rise 45 minutes more.
  5. Brush with beaten egg, scatter with flaked almonds, and bake at 170°C (340°F) for 45 to 50 minutes, tenting with foil once deeply golden.
  6. Cool completely before slicing. Serve in thick slices spread with butter.
Cukrárna Palačinky, thin golden crepes folded with sweet cheese and fruit

Palačinky s tvarohem

Thin crepes with sweet tvaroh

40 min·4 servings·Easy

The sweet finish of every Bohemian childhood. Lacy crepes cooked on butter, rolled around vanilla scented tvaroh, and glossed with more melted butter and a spoon of fruit preserve.

Ingredients

  • 200 g plain flour
  • 400 ml whole milk
  • 3 eggs
  • 1 tbsp sugar and a pinch of salt
  • 90 g butter, divided (for the pan and to finish)
  • 350 g tvaroh (farmer's cheese or thick quark)
  • 3 tbsp icing sugar, plus more to dust
  • 1 tsp vanilla sugar
  • Zest of half a lemon
  • Plum or apricot preserve, to serve

Instructions

  1. Whisk the flour, milk, eggs, sugar, and salt into a thin, smooth batter and rest it 20 minutes.
  2. Beat the tvaroh with the icing sugar, vanilla sugar, and lemon zest until creamy.
  3. Melt a little butter in a wide pan over medium heat and swirl in a thin layer of batter.
  4. Cook each crepe about 1 minute per side until lightly golden, buttering the pan between crepes.
  5. Spread each warm crepe with the sweet tvaroh and roll it into a neat cylinder.
  6. Arrange on warm plates, brush with the remaining melted butter, dust with icing sugar, and serve with a spoon of preserve.
A cook working at a warm stove in a busy home kitchen
Our Kitchen

The Kitchen Behind Feflas Kuchyně

Feflas Kuchyně is a small home kitchen devoted to the cooking of Bohemia, the land of carp ponds and hop fields where Sunday lunch begins with soup, continues with dumplings, and is never, ever rushed. We write these recipes down the way they are still cooked in family kitchens and village hospody, patiently, precisely, and always with a generous hand on the butter.

Our only house rule is an old one: butter from the dairy, sádlo rendered slowly the traditional way, and nothing else. Vegetable oil never comes through our door, because it never sat on the tables we learned from.

Dobrou chuť, may it feed you well.