Sauces · Czech cuisine
Svíčková sauce
Czech svíčková omáčka: a cream sauce of roasted root vegetables, spices and cream, served with beef and dumplings.
At a glance
- Origin
- Bohemia, 19th century; standard form in 20th-century cookbooks.
- Production
- Root vegetables roasted with the meat, pressed into the juices and bound with cream (traditionally sour) and flour.
- Pairs with
- Beef tenderloin with bread dumplings.
- Use
- Made the same way for game and other meats.
Svíčková sauce (svíčková omáčka) is a thick Czech sauce of root vegetables roasted with the meat, pressed into the pan juices and finished with sour cream. Today sweet whipping cream is also commonly used. It is named after the beef tenderloin, svíčková, it accompanies.
Marie Janků-Sandtnerová describes it in her 1947 cookbook: tenderloin larded with bacon is marinated for a day with vegetables, onion and spices (pepper, allspice, bay leaf, thyme), then roasted with a strip of lemon peel until the vegetables turn red. The vegetables are pressed into the juices, which are poured into sour cream mixed with flour and lemon juice and simmered. It is served with bread dumplings.
Its origin is unclear. The first edition of M. D. Rettigová’s cookbook (1826) does not give it in its present form; the 1849 German edition already gives tenderloin marinated in vinegar and basted with sour cream, as well as one braised on root vegetables.