Svickova?

So I was in a chat where someone asked, “What’s your favorite food?” and someone from the Czech Republic answered, Svickova. Never heard of it, so I went hunting.

More than I love foreign food, I love foreign food tv shows, so this was a lot of fun. But after watching the video I had questions.

  1. THOSE AREN’T DUMPLINGS THEY ARE FOOTBALLS seriously how do you boil bread and get them fully cooked without turning into thickener?

  2. This is just simple. I mean, it’s a LOT of work, mostly for the dumplings. But it’s one step after another, the ideal stand and stir dish.

  3. Their idea of lard is like our idea of…pork belly?

  4. Cranberry sauce? Is that native in Europe?

  5. DON’T feed cooked bones to your dogs. Only raw bones. Come on man.

  6. Man I want this to work. I’ve never seen a 6 lb sirloin cut at the store but I would be glad to ask.

How come the water sound at 11:10 is so fake?

Of course the sound goes away by 11:21

Poor doggies for eating cooked bones.

Since this is a braise, it seems wasteful to me to use a lean cut like sirloin when a chuck roast, or even a bottom round, would be suitable. (I hope Fourunder makes his way to this site from CH. He has great expertise about meat cuts.)

The egg and baking powder are enough to make dumplings cohere, but I must say that these are unappealingly large. Egg-sized ones would be more to my liking. and cook faster. That broth seemed rather thin, and pale. I’d cook the dumplings in it, What remained in the pot after that would have reduced a bit, and thickened.

To answer number three, I think the answer is yes. I was at a European market ran by Russians (I think). I saw what looked like lard to me and asked the guy behind the counter if that is what it was. I bought some and he asked what I was going to do with it and I said that I was going to make tamales with it. He gave me an odd look so I asked him what he would do with it. I asked him what he would do with it and he said he would put it on toast. I think that is what he was saying. There was quite a bit of a language barrier. When I got it home I realized that it is not lard in what I think of a lard. It was a solid block of fat. Like pork belly but with no meat what so ever. Pure white and dense. I am not sure how he puts it on toast. It was not spreadable so it would have to be a slice like he has it sliced in the video. I could not decided what to do with it at the time so it is now lurking around my freezer somewhere probably never to be seen again.

In view of the language barrier, perhaps he was trying to convey that he’d cook it in the oven to render it. “Toast” could mean heat, rather than toasted bread.

Maybe but I do not think so. I so of remember it as on toast in the morning. The language barrier was not all that bad but you never know. It is near where I sometimes buy wine. Maybe one day I’ll stop in and see what it really was that I bought just out of pure curiosity. Sadly, I did not much like the store or I would have gone back already.