Česká Kuchyně · The Bohemian Table

Czech Cooking Without Vegetable Oil

Step into the kitchens of Bohemia, where Sunday sirloin rests under a velvet cream sauce, potato pancakes crackle in golden lard, and every braided loaf begins with real butter. Honest ingredients and deep flavor, the way the villages and pubs of the Czech lands have always cooked.

Explore the Recipes
Máslo❖ Sádlo❖ Smetana
A carefully plated dinner on a dark wooden table
❖ Svíčková na smetaně
From the recipe collection
A warm bowl of creamy soup finished with fresh herbs
Freshly baked loaves resting on a bakery board
Máslo

Butter First

Czech cooking was built on butter from highland dairies. Every sauce, crepe, and festive loaf in this collection begins with it, never with a refined seed oil.

Sádlo

Golden Sádlo

Sádlo, the rendered pork lard of the Czech larder, fries a bramborák to a bronze crust and a depth of flavor that no vegetable oil can imitate.

Nikdy

Never Vegetable Oil

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

❖
From Our Kitchen

Recipes From Bohemia

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

Neděle Sliced roast beef with a rich sauce on a warm plate

Svíčková na smetaně

Beef sirloin in cream sauce

3 hr·6 servings·Medium

The crown of the Czech Sunday table. Slow-roasted beef under a silky sauce of root vegetables and cream, served with bread dumplings and a spoon of cranberries.

Ingredients

  • 1 kg beef sirloin or eye of round
  • Salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • 60 g butter
  • 2 tbsp sádlo (pork lard)
  • 2 carrots, 1 parsnip, and a quarter celeriac, diced
  • 1 large onion, chopped
  • 5 allspice berries, 2 bay leaves, 8 black peppercorns
  • 1 tbsp mild vinegar or juice of half a lemon
  • 250 ml heavy cream
  • Bread dumplings and cranberry preserve, to serve

Instructions

  1. Season the beef all over and let it stand while you melt the sádlo with half the butter in a heavy pot.
  2. Brown the beef on all sides, lift it out, and soften the onion and root vegetables in the same fat for 10 minutes.
  3. Return the beef, add the spices and a splash of water, cover, and braise gently for about 2 hours, turning once.
  4. Lift out the meat and the bay leaves, then blend the vegetables and juices into a smooth sauce.
  5. Stir in the cream and vinegar, season, and let the sauce barely simmer for 5 minutes with the remaining butter.
  6. Slice the beef across the grain and return it to the sauce to warm through.
  7. Serve over bread dumplings with a spoon of cranberries on top.
Vánoce A golden fish fillet glazed with butter and herbs

Kapr na másle

Carp in golden butter

40 min·4 servings·Easy

The quiet star of the Czech Christmas Eve. Fresh carp cooked slowly in foaming butter with caraway and lemon, finished with parsley and served with potatoes.

Ingredients

  • 4 carp fillets, or trout fillets
  • Salt and white pepper
  • 2 tbsp plain flour, for dusting
  • 120 g butter, divided
  • 1 tbsp ghee (clarified butter)
  • 1 tsp caraway seeds
  • Juice of half a lemon
  • 3 tbsp parsley, chopped
  • Lemon wedges, to serve
  • Boiled potatoes turned in butter, to serve

Instructions

  1. Pat the fillets very dry, season both sides, and dust lightly with flour.
  2. Warm the ghee with 40 g of the butter in a wide pan over medium heat until it foams.
  3. Lay the fillets in skin side down with the caraway and cook 4 minutes until the skin is bronzed.
  4. Turn gently and cook 2 to 3 minutes more until the flesh flakes, then lift onto warm plates.
  5. Add the remaining butter to the pan and let it turn a deep nut brown, swirling constantly.
  6. Pull the pan off the heat, add the lemon juice, and spoon the butter over the fish with the parsley. Serve with potatoes and lemon.
Šumava A rustic bowl of creamy dill and mushroom soup

Kulajda

Dill and mushroom cream soup

45 min·4 servings·Easy

South Bohemia in a bowl. Potatoes and forest mushrooms in a gently soured cream broth, heavy with fresh dill and crowned with a soft poached egg.

Ingredients

  • 500 g waxy potatoes, diced
  • 200 g fresh or rehydrated forest mushrooms
  • 60 g butter
  • 2 tbsp plain flour
  • 1 litre water or light vegetable broth
  • 2 bay leaves and 4 allspice berries
  • 200 ml sour cream
  • 1 tbsp mild vinegar, or to taste
  • A large handful 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. Dust with the flour, stir 2 minutes, then whisk in the water gradually so no lumps form.
  3. Add the potatoes, bay leaves, and allspice, and simmer about 15 minutes until the potatoes are tender.
  4. Whisk the sour cream with a ladle of hot soup, then stir it back into the pot and season with salt and vinegar.
  5. Poach the eggs in barely simmering water for 3 to 4 minutes while the soup rests off the boil.
  6. Stir most of the dill into the soup and ladle into deep bowls.
  7. Slide a poached egg into each bowl and finish with the remaining dill.
Hospoda Crisp golden potato pancakes stacked on a plate

Bramborák

Garlic and marjoram potato pancake

35 min·4 servings·Easy

The beloved pancake of every Czech pub. Grated potatoes seasoned boldly with garlic and marjoram, fried in sádlo until the edges turn to bronze lace.

Ingredients

  • 800 g starchy potatoes, peeled
  • 3 garlic cloves, crushed
  • 1 heaping tbsp dried marjoram
  • 2 eggs
  • 4 tbsp plain flour
  • 3 tbsp whole milk
  • 1 tsp salt
  • Plenty of coarsely ground black pepper
  • 1 tsp caraway seeds (optional)
  • 150 g sádlo (pork lard), for frying

Instructions

  1. Grate the potatoes finely, then squeeze out as much liquid as you can in a clean cloth.
  2. Mix the potatoes with the garlic, marjoram, eggs, flour, milk, salt, pepper, and caraway into a thick batter.
  3. Melt a generous layer of sádlo in a heavy pan over medium high heat until it shimmers.
  4. Ladle in the batter and spread it thin, frying 3 to 4 minutes until the underside is deeply bronzed.
  5. Flip and fry the second side until crisp at the edges, adding a little more sádlo as needed.
  6. Keep the pancakes warm in a low oven while you fry the rest, and serve hot with a cold glass of something Czech.
Pekárna A braided golden loaf dusted with flour on a bakery board

Vánočka

Braided festive butter loaf

3 hr 30·1 loaf·Medium

The tall braided loaf of the Czech holiday table. A soft dough rich with butter, egg yolks, and lemon zest, studded with raisins and almonds and baked to a deep gold.

Ingredients

  • 500 g bread flour
  • 7 g instant yeast
  • 80 g sugar
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 200 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
  • 80 g raisins, soaked in warm water
  • 50 g flaked almonds

Instructions

  1. Whisk the flour, yeast, sugar, and salt, then add the milk, soft butter, egg yolks, and lemon zest and knead 10 minutes to a silky dough.
  2. Cover and let it rise about 1 hour 30 minutes until doubled.
  3. Knead in the drained raisins, then divide the dough into strands and braid a wide base of four, a middle of three, and a twist of two on top.
  4. Secure the layers with wooden skewers, set the loaf on a buttered tray, and let it rise 45 minutes more.
  5. Brush with the beaten egg and scatter generously with flaked almonds.
  6. Bake at 170°C (340°F) for 45 to 50 minutes until deep gold, tenting with foil if it browns too fast.
  7. Cool completely before slicing, and toast any leftovers in butter the next morning.
Kavárna Thin golden crepes folded with a sweet cheese filling

Palačinky s tvarohem

Czech crepes with sweet cheese

40 min·4 servings·Easy

The dessert of every Czech grandmother's kitchen. Thin crepes cooked in butter, rolled around lemon-scented sweet cheese, and dusted with icing sugar.

Ingredients

  • 250 g plain flour
  • 500 ml whole milk
  • 3 eggs
  • 2 tbsp sugar, plus more to taste
  • A pinch of salt
  • 80 g butter, melted, for the batter and the pan
  • 350 g tvaroh (quark) or ricotta
  • Zest of 1 lemon
  • 3 tbsp thick sour cream
  • Icing sugar and fruit preserve, to serve

Instructions

  1. Whisk the flour, milk, eggs, sugar, salt, and 2 tbsp of the melted butter into a thin, smooth batter and rest it 20 minutes.
  2. Beat the tvaroh with the lemon zest, sour cream, and sugar to taste until creamy.
  3. Brush a wide pan with melted butter and pour in a thin layer of batter, swirling to coat.
  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 cheese and roll it into a loose cigar.
  6. Dust thickly with icing sugar and serve warm with a spoon of fruit preserve.
Our Kitchen

The Kitchen Behind Rezdos Kuchyně

Rezdos Kuchyně is a small home kitchen devoted to the cooking of the Czech lands, where Sunday lunch is an institution, soup opens every proper meal, and dessert is never optional. 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, cream from the top of the jug, 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.

A cook working at a warm stove in a busy home kitchen