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Svíčková na Smetaně (Marinated Beef in Root Vegetable Cream Sauce)

Svíčková na Smetaně (Marinated Beef in Root Vegetable Cream Sauce) reads umami 6.7, richness 6.3 and sourness 4.9 on Palate's 0–10 flavor X-ray — a Czech main, about 3 hr 35 min. Measured from the recipe itself: ingredients and technique.

The flavor X-ray — six axes, 0–10

• Umami & Savory — 7.1 / 10
• Sweet & Fruity — 5.3 / 10
• Sour & Bright — 6.4 / 10
• Bitter & Earthy — 3.6 / 10
• Rich & Fat — 6.5 / 10
• Aromatic & Spice — 2.7 / 10

The measured notes (of 18)

Umami 6.7 · Richness 6.3 · Sourness 4.9 · Citrus 4.8 · Salinity 4.4 · Sweetness 4.1 · Fruity 3.8 · Smoke 3.2 · Allium 2.4 · Earthy 1.5 · Warm Spice 1.3 · Bitterness 1.2 · Heat 1.0 · Nutty 0.9 · Herbaceous 0.8 · Floral 0.8

What's in it (16)

• beef sirloin cap — 1200 g
• bacon — 100 g
• carrots — 120 g
• parsley root — 100 g
• celeriac — 200 g
• onions — 220 g
• unsalted butter — 80 g
• allspice — 1000 g
• black peppercorns — 1000 g
• bay leaf — 2 g
• thyme — 1 g
• beef stock — 500 g
• heavy cream — 250 g
• white wine vinegar — 30 g
• caster sugar — 25 g
• lemon — 33 g

Time & effort: about 3 hr 35 min (3 hr 20 min active) · effort: involved

Nutrition (per 100 g, engine-estimated): 134.9 kcal, 4.1 g protein, 6 g fat, 29.6 g carbs

Dietary: Contains meat · Contains dairy — engine-derived; double-check anything allergy-critical.

How it's cooked (10 steps)

1. Lard the beef: make deep holes through the joint with a sharpening steel or a thin knife and push a lardon of smoked bacon into each. Six or seven is enough. The bacon bastes the lean joint from the inside over three hours in the oven.
2. Melt the butter in a heavy casserole and cook the carrot, parsley root, celeriac and onion over medium heat for 25 minutes, stirring often, until they are deeply coloured and beginning to stick. This browning is the colour and half the flavour of the finished sauce; pale vegetables give you a pale, thin svíčková.
3. Add the allspice, peppercorns, bay and thyme and toast in the fat 2 minutes.
4. Sit the beef on top of the vegetables, pour in the stock, cover, and braise at 160 C for 2 hours 30 minutes, turning the meat once.
5. Lift the meat out and rest it, covered, 15 minutes.
6. Fish out the bay leaves and as many whole allspice berries and peppercorns as you can find, pour in the cream and blend the vegetables to a smooth sauce with a stick blender, 3 minutes.
7. Push the sauce through a fine sieve, working it with a ladle. It should coat a spoon thickly; loosen with stock if not, and reduce if it is thin.
8. Now balance it. Add the vinegar, sugar and lemon juice a little at a time. Svíčková is a sweet-and-sour sauce and the point where it stops tasting like gravy and starts tasting like svíčková is exactly when the sourness and the sweetness are both clearly present at once.
9. Slice the beef thinly across the grain, flood the plate with sauce and lay the meat on it. It is served with houskový knedlík, a spoon of cranberry compote, a curl of whipped cream and a slice of lemon, and every one of those garnishes is standard rather than decorative.
10. Substitutions: topside can stand in for the beef sirloin cap.

Dishes with a similar flavor shape

• Sheet-Pan Sausage, Potatoes, and Peppers — American
• Quimbombó con Bolitas de Plátano — Cuban
• Ground Beef Tacos with Crunchy Shells — Tex-Mex
• Lamb Shawarma Flatbreads — Middle Eastern
• Lamb and Chickpea Harissa Stew — Middle Eastern

Keep reading: what umami, richness, sourness mean in the flavor lexicon · the world's cuisines, by flavor.

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Every number above is Palate's engine-measured estimate, computed from this recipe's ingredients and techniques — not human-tasted ratings or reviews.