Czech Svíčková Sauce Recipe

Let me introduce Svíčková na smetaně to you, the queen of Czech sauces. This creamy sauce is popular among Czechs, but it’s also typical food that everybody should try while visiting the Czech Republic. Here is a step-by-step recipe on how to make svíčková from scratch!

What Is Svíčková na smetaně?

Svíčková is a famous sauce from Czech cuisine, made from root vegetables and heavy cream. It’s thickened with roux.

Svíčková sauce is eaten warm poured over a beef slice, accompanied with bread dumplings. You can also garnish the final dish with lemon, cranberries, and a scoop of whipped cream.

The literal translation could be “Beef tenderloin in cream sauce”, but I don’t know any single Czech who would use this beef cut (tenderloin/fillet mignon) for svíčková. More about the best beef cuts for svíčková further in the article.

Making svíčková is not hard; you don’t need any fad ingredients. The magic lies in the process, which you have to carefully follow step-by-step, with the result being a flavorful and rich sauce.

TIP: Svíčková belongs with 12 other dishes among traditional Czech foods.

NOTE: Please note that preparing svíčková can take anywhere from 3 to 3.5 hours, so plan ahead!

Pronunciation

I recorded a short audio clip on pronouncing the Czech word svíčková. The first word in the audio is "svíčková", the last is "svíčková na smetaně", which means svíčková with cream.

Two Reasons Why Home Cooks Mihgt Fail Making Svíčková

I saw many recipes on the internet containing errors and mistakes. A long story short, here are two primary insults against the traditional, real svíčková recipe:

1. The sauce is NOT thickened with roux.

To thicken svíčková, it’s not enough to mix the vegetables and cream only at the end of cooking.

In this case, the liquid separates from the vegetables and will be absorbed by the dumplings. The result won’t look nearly good enough.

Roux is a must; it brings the sauce together and gives it its typical satin texture. In Czech is roux known as "jíška" or "zásmažka".

2. The base with vegetables is NOT sauteed & seasoned well initially.

You can’t throw vegetables into a pot and expect svíčková to appear in a puff of purple smoke magically.

As the first step, you must sauté diced vegetables with butter, season them with sugar, salt, and vinegar.

It takes some time, but if you do this part faithfully, svíčková’s taste will be strong and darn delicious from the very beginning!

Ingredients

Let’s go on and take a peek at the ingredients needed to make svíčková:  

• Beef; many respected Czech cooks recommend top blade or bolar blade; in this recipe, I used a piece of the top blade (loupaná plec in Czech)
• Bacon; to lard the beef
• Vegetables: parsley roots, carrots, celeriac, onions
• Apple; for a smoother taste
• Lard; to brown the beef
• Butter; to sauté vegetables
• Granulated sugar; to sweeten svíčková
• Heavy cream; must contain at least 30 % or more milk fat
• Vinegar
• Lemon juice; for final seasoning
• For roux: unsalted butter and all-purpose flour
• Spices: bay leaves, peppercorn (black pepper berries), allspice balls
• Salt and ground pepper

✅ You’ll find the exact amount of ingredients below in the recipe card, which you can also print out.

NOTE: In the photo, there are not ingredients for roux included (all-purpose flour and butter).

Instructions

There’s a lot of svíčková recipe variants. In some cases, they want you to marinate the meat beforehand, pour in some wine or add thyme and other spices and herbs. Some recipes are overly complicated to their own detriment.

The process written down here is simple and easy to follow. The beef doesn’t need to be marinated in advance. It’s braised in a heavy pot on the stove.

STEP 1: Lard the beef with stripes of bacon

• Cut bacon into ⅓ inch thick and about 4 inch long pieces and put them into a freezer for 30 minutes to harden them.
• Use a thin knife with a long edge and make some holes into the meat.
• Stick your index finger inside each hole and wiggle it so the hole enlarges.
• You can make the holes into both sides of the beef.
• Once you have the holes ready, press in stripes of bacon.

Note: The larding can be kind of labor-intensive. Because I don’t own any larding needle, I only used a knife and my fingers.

Here you’ll find more useful info on the larding process: Larding meat

Optionally, for a better shape, tie the irregular-shaped meat with a cooking string (kitchen twine).

How to tie meat you can see in this video, it’s in Czech, but the cook there shows the method very well: Tying meat for cooking

After the meat is larded (and tied if you did it), salt and pepper it properly from all sides:

STEP 2: Prepare the vegetables and spices

• Peel the carrot, parsley root, and celeriac, dice into ½ inch pieces.
• Peel onions and chop them roughly. Peel an apple and dice it.
• If possible, tie the spices tightly in a clean canvas; you will place the canvas with spices into a pot later.

I used my old tea strainer for allspice balls and peppercorn and put the bay leaves free into a pot:

STEP 3: Brown the beef

In a large heavy pot, melt lard over higher heat and sear the beef from all sides until brown. Remove the browned meat and set it aside.

STEP 4: Sauté the vegetables

• Use the same pot which we used to prepare the meat. Reduce temperature to medium heat, add butter and any leftover bacon from larding.
• Add diced carrots, parsley roots, and celeriac. Cook until slightly golden, stirring occasionally.

STEP 5: Add onions and apple

Throw chopped onions to vegetables, add a diced apple and cook for another 3-4 minutes, stirring frequently.

STEP 6: Add sugar and vinegar

• Add sugar, mix, and let it melt & caramelize while occasionally stirring. Count on 3-5 minutes.
• Pour in vinegar, mix, and let vinegar evaporate while stirring, so that there are only vegetables with melted sugar and some fat on the bottom of the pot. It takes a few minutes. If the vinegar stayed in the vegetables, the sauce would taste too sour!
• Add 1 teaspoon of salt and mix it.

Voilà, the base for great svíčková is ready!

STEP 7: Return the browned beef to a pot

• Return the browned beef to a pot, pour over hot water until you have the meat almost submerged.
• Add 1 teaspoon of salt and spices.
• Count the number of bay leaves if you add them to the pot freely! You need to remove them all later before the final mixing of svíčková sauce.

STEP 8: Bring to a boil, reduce heat to a minimum. Cover with a lid and allow it to simmer for 2,5 hours until beef softens.

STEP 9: Remove the spices, especially all bay leaves. Remove ¼ of vegetables and discard them. If you left all the vegetables in the sauce, svíčková would taste too much like the vegetables, and it would be too dense. Take out the beef and keep it in a warm place.

STEP 10: Make the roux

• In a pan, melt butter on medium heat.
• Add flour, frequently mix until lightly golden.

Get a sieve, put roux in it, submerge into the svíčková and press roux through the sieve. Continuously mix the roux in the sauce.

STEP 11: Bring the pot back on a stove, let it simmer for 15-20 minutes.

Stir occasionally because the roux tends to sit down and stick to the bottom of the pot.

The roux loses its floury taste after about 15 minutes of simmering. It thickens the sauce, whose texture will be very smooth and silky.

STEP 12: Add heavy cream into sauce and stir; no more cooking!

STEP 13: Mix everything with an immersion blender and strain the sauce in a clean pot. Season with lemon juice and salt to your liking.

Serve with bread dumplings and a slice of beef.

You can also garnish the svíčková with a slice of lemon, a whipped cream scoop, and a spoon of canned cranberries. This type of garnishing is called “terčík” in Czech. I personally garnish svíčková with lemon and cranberry jam only.

Does your svíčková look tasty? Well, let’s go and eat it! Dobrou chuť 🙂

Cook’s Tips

• On the second day, svíčková tastes even better. It’s also thicker. That’s why you have to add some water while heating the sauce, which helps it return to its regular creamy texture.
• Don’t use any cream containing less than 30 % fat. Low-fat creams added in a hot sauce can cause the sauce to start curdling.
• You must remove all bay leaves before mixing svíčková for the final time. The pieces of bay leaves are inedible and can taint the entire meal, especially if you don’t strain the svíčková over a sieve.  
• If you visit Prague (the capital city of the Czech Republic) and want to order some svíčková in a restaurant, here is the correct pronunciation: [ˈsviːt͡ʃkova:]
• This recipe is inspired by Czech Chef Roman Vaněk and his cookbook “Velká kuchařka Čech a Moravy” (in my opinion, the best Czech cookbook).

Want more typical Czech dishes? Try beef goulash, Czech-style beef stew, or dill sauce, a Czech sweet-sour koprova omacka!

FAQ

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These Czech dishes are also delicious:

• Sweet tomato gravy – famous Czech rajska omacka with beef and bread dumplings
• Pork schnitzel – breaded fried pork, Czech rizek (řízek)
• Sekaná – beef and pork meatloaf