Recipes from the Krkonoše Mountains and Podkrkonoší Lowlands

Krkonošské kyselo (Krkonoše kyselo soup)

A typical soup of the Krkonoše and Podkrkonoší area made from bread yeast. You can taste it in almost all of the restaurants in Krkonoše.

200 g bread yeast, 50 g butter, 10 g dried mushrooms (or 100g of fresh mushrooms), 1 onion, 4 eggs, 1 dl cream, 500 g potatoes, salt, caraway seeds, 1 liter of water

Add the bread yeast to boiling water, mix together, season with salt and add the caraway seeds, mushroom stock and chopped mushrooms. Leave the soup to simmer for about half an hour. Finally add finely chopped onions fried in butter and slightly scrambled eggs. Mix everything together, add the cream and season. Serve the soup with peeled and sliced potatoes boiled in their jackets.

Krkonošské sejkory

1 kg potatoes, 20 ml milk / a little milk to stop the dough from losing its colour, 2 eggs, 150 g plain flour, 3 garlic cloves, 2 spoonfuls of marjoram, ground pepper, salt, butter or lard

Peal and wash the potatoes. Finely grate them and remove any excess liquid. Scramble the eggs with a little milk and add them to the potatoes, add the plain flour and season the mixture with marjoram and pepper. Combine the garlic with the salt and add to the dough. Thoroughly mix everything together and prepare the dough. Spread out a little dough in a heated pan and quickly cook the cakes that are formed on both sides. Prior to serving spread on some lard or clarified butter.

Krkonošský houbový Kuba, houbanec, hubník (Krkonošský mushroom Kuba, houbanec, hubník)

8 bread rolls, 1/2 l milk, 8 eggs, 150 g onion, marjoram, a pinch of ground allspice, caraway seeds, 5 garlic cloves, 250 g streaky smoked meat, salt, pepper, 150 g of dried mushrooms

Dip slices of day-old rolls into the milk and eggs. Mince the smoked meat and add the sliced onion and brown. Add to the rolls, and season with salt, spices and garlic. Press and mince the boiled mushrooms and add them to the basic ingredients. Bake in the oven in a greased baking tray until golden brown.

Zelníky (pancakes)

Pancakes with cabbage.

500 g flour, 150 g fat, 400 g sour cabbage, 2 eggs (1 beaten), handful of freshly cut marjoram, salt

Process flour with lard, cabbage and one egg on the pastry board. Roll a flat cake about half a centimeter thick. Turn the pancake over on a baking tray, cut it into squares, spread with the beaten egg and sprinkle with marjoram. Bake at 200 degrees until golden brown. Separate squares from each other with a knife.

Škubánky – kucmoch

A traditional sweet regional delicacy from potato pastry.

1 kg potatoes, 200 g coarse flour, 80 g lard (or oil or butter), 30 g poppy seeds, 30 g icing sugar, salt

Boil peeled and sliced potatoes in a little bit salted water, do not let them get too soft. After cooking pour the water off them into a container and sprinkle them with flour. Make a few holes to the bottom with the spoon; pour a little strained water (to approx. half of the potatoes). Leave them on the warm stove for approx. 10 minutes. Pour off spare water, mash potatoes with flour thoroughly to make the dough smooth and solid. With a spoon dipped in melted lard cut dumplings from the dough, put them in the bowl, sprinkle with poppy seeds and icing sugar.

Sour cabbage from Roprachtice

Special pointed red cabbage which is grown only in windy areas of Krkonoše Mountains. The cabbage turns its leaves to height and is very fragile.

1 kg pointed red cabbage, 15 g salt, 1 big onion, a bit of cumin, horseradish

Slice cabbage together with onion, add salt and a bit of cumin, stir until it leaves juice. Grate horseradish finely and mix into the cabbage just before filling the barel. You may add small sour apples. The cabbage rapidly ferments in the heat for a week, when transferred to the cold cellar fermentation gets slower.

Krkonoše Mountains have their unique crop. Red cabbage have always grown well on windy slopes. Cabbage from Vysoké nad Jizerou is very well-known. It becomes ripe in mid-October. The procedure for its conservation is not complicated.

Grate cabbage together with onions. You need approximately 4 medium-sized onions for 10 kg cabbage. Adding approx. 100 g salt, preferably rock salt. Cabbage leaves water shortly, it is good to keep stirring and squeezing it constantly. You may put small apples in the barrel. At the end weigh down the cabbage and cover it. The fermentation takes place at room temperature for about 14 days, after that move the barrel in the cold place.

Makové peciválky se sirobem (Poppy buns with treacle)

1 kg semicoarse flour, 200 g sugar, 200 g butter, 1 vanilla sugar, 50 g yeast, a bit of milk, salt, gingerbread for grating, traditional treacle (dandelion honey may be used instead)

Filling: poppy

Make leaven and knead stiffer dough. Make buns filled with poppy seeds about the size of smaller doughnuts and bake them. On the third or fourth day put the buns on the steamer, steam them and lay in the bowl and sprinkle them with grated gingerbread. Heat butter together with several spoons of syrup or dandelion honey until they combine, pour over the buns in the bowl.

It is delicious, very tasty and very filling. They used to prepare this meal for the Christmas Eve table as a dessert and it originally comes from Nový Bydžov and Jičín area. It was mainly prepared after the WWI. Traditional treacle is cooked from sugar beet after it is cleaned, cut into slivers and boilt. Drain it and let the water evaporate on the stove until the black substance is thick like honey. At Easter “Jidáše” are also spread with treacle.

Potato pancakes

500 g potatoes, flour, egg, salt, butter, plum butter, syrup, confectioner´s sugar

Boil the potatoes in their skins, peel and finely grate, add eggs and flour. Prepare stiffer dough and divide into smaller pieces that you roll out to pancakes. Prepare a hotplate which you wrap in aluminum foil, heat it and lay thinly sprawled pancakes on it. When brown spots come on the pancake, turn it. The typical smell is as if they were potatoes baked in fire. When the pancake is baked, remove it from the hotplate, brush with butter and spread with plum butter, treacle or sprinkle with confectioner´s sugar.

Švestková omáčka se špalíky a s uzeným /vepřovým kolenem (Plum sauce with špalíky and smoked / pork knuckle)

1/2 l water, 5 spoons of plum butter, 2 spoons of grated gingerbread, a bit of whole cinnamon, 3 cloves, a cup of sweet cream, handful scalded raisins, 4 spoons of almond slices, sugar

Pour water into a saucepan, add the plum butter, mix it; stir gingerbread, spices, cream, almonds and raisins and bring to boiling with constant stirring. Let it bubble for a while, sugar to taste and leave it in a warm place for a while.

Serve with smoked roll and potato špalíky.

Potato soup thickened with roux

A very favourite soup. A traditional potato soup is of a thick consistency and it always consists of 3 basic ingredients – potatoes, garlic and marjoram.

2 l water, 500 g potatoes, salt, handful of dried mushrooms, 2 spoonfuls of flour, 30 g lard, 20 g butter, ½ celery, 2 carrots, 1 parsley, 2 cloves of garlic, marjoram, greens (parsley, chives, lovage)

Cut the potatoes and put them in the water to cook, add salt and mushrooms. Cut carrots, celery and parsley and fry them on the butter. Heat the lard on the pan, add flour and make roux. Water it down and add it with lightly fried vegetables when the potatoes are almost cooked. Finally add ground garlic, marjoram and chopped greens.

Kulajda with buttermilk

Kulajda is a traditional meal of the Krkonoše Lowlands. It is made from ingredients which are locally found and grown.

1 l water, 2 handfuls of dried mushrooms, salt, a bit cummin, 4 potatoes, 100 ml cream, 2 spoons flour, 100 ml buttermilk, dill to taste, 1 egg, vinegar to taste

Pour approximately a litre of water over potatoes and salt. Cook for a while, add cumin and cut potatoes. Cook approximately 15 minutes until they are almost soft. Whisk flour in the whipping cream, pour in the soup and cook. Add buttermilk, warm it up and season with dill. Break the egg in the soup and mix it up quickly. Salt and vinegar to taste.

Pea soup

In the earlier times a pea soup was cooked in Podkrkonoší Lowlands on the Christmas Eve. Some people serve it for lunch or for dinner on Christmas Eve until today.

1,5 l water, 150 g peas, 50 g lard, 1 onion, 1 clove of garlic, 60 g flour, salt, pepper, marjoram, a bit of chopped parsley

Pick over peas, rinse it and leave in water for at least 3 hours to let it swell. Then cook until soft. In another pot heat the lard and stir thinly chopped onion, add flour and make light roux. Pour water over roux and cook while still stirring. Add peas, stir it and cook. Mix the soup up and season with ground garlic, marjoram, salt and pepper.

Potato pancakes from Podkrkonoší Region

Potato pancakes from Podkrkoší Lowlands are perfect as a side dish or a main course. We serve them freshly baked when they are delicate and crispy.

400 g coarse-grained flour, 1 kg potatoes, salt, baking fat

Cook the potatoes in their skins and let them get cold. Peel cooked and cold potatoes, grate them and process with salt and flour until there is a thick dough. Roll the pancakes. Bake the pancakes on both sides on the greased tray in the oven. You may add garlic or herbs in the dough to taste.

Potatoes to peel

The best about this meal is the contrast between hot potatoes and cold milk which melts as such. You may drink buttermilk or hot milk with this meal.

1 kg potatoes, 250 g cottage cheese, butter as per needs and taste

Bake potatoes in skins. Meanwhile stir cottage cheese and add salt. Peel cooked potatoes and serve with a bit of butter, cottage cheese and salt.

„Musicians“

They are potato pancakes baked in the shape of little squares. You can also make a sweet meal sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon.

1 kg sour cabbage, sugar, salt, 1 kg cooked potatoes, 100 – 150 g flour, 1 egg, salt, 4 spoons of lard, 2 onions

Pour water over cabbage and let it cook. Peel cooked potatoes, grind or grate and process on the rolling board with only a bit of flour, egg and salt. Roll out a thin sheet out of dough, cut it in the squares and bake on both sides on the pan or on the greased pan in the oven. Pour the potato squares in a deeper bowl, grease thoroughly with the onion fried on the lard and then mix it up with the separately cooked cabbage which was seasoned with salt and sugar as needed. Serve with hot milk.

Raised potato scones with cheese

This meal used to be served at festive occasions. It used to be cooked as the main dish in a lot of variants and a number of various side dishes.

500 g cooked potatoes, 200 g coarse-grained flour, salt, 1 egg, 100 g cheese, 20 g yeast, ½ spoon of sugar, 4 spoons of milk, frying oil

Peel cooked potatoes a day before, grind at the meat mill, add salt, egg, flour and grated cheese. Add sugar to lukewarm milk, break the yeast, cover it and let it rise. Add to other ingredients and roll out a thicker plate, cut out scones and fry them on both sides on the hot oil. You may serve with spinach.

Summer cabbage with apples

The salad is very good with the finely chopped dill.

1 medium size cabbage, salt, cumin, 10 small apples, 3 spoons of oil, sugar, vinegar to taste, green parsley

Finely chop cabbage, put in the pot, pour over with a small amount of water, add salt and cumin and stew for 10 minutes. Meanwhile wash the apples, divide into eights, get rid of the cores and add cabbage and let it stew. Once cabbage and apples get softer, add oil, season with sugar and vinegar and stir lightly so that the apples remain in whole. Add also finely chopped parsley. Serve with cooked potatoes.

Zelníky - Podchlumí

Cabbage potatoes.

500 g flour, 150 g lard, 400 g squeezed and cut sour cabbage, 2 eggs (1 whisked), handful freshly chopped marjoram, salt

Process flour with lard, cabbage and 1 egg on the rolling board. Roll out a pancake approximately half a centimetre thick. With the roll move the pancake on the tray, cut it in squares and spread with a whisked egg and sprinkle with marjoram. Bake at 200 degrees until golden brown. Separate the squares with the knife.

Svarba

„Svarba“ together with „kuba“ used to be a traditional Christmas Eve meal in poor Podkrkonoší Lowlands families. People used to cook from the most available ingredients – potatoes, lentils, peas and hulled grains.

250 g peas, 250 g hulled grains, 1 spoon oil, salt, cumin, 100 g pork cinders, 4 spoons of lard, 2 bigger onions, 200 g smoked meat

Cook dipped peas, separately cook hulled grains with a bit of cumin, salt and oil so that they do not weld. Fry finely chopped onions on the lard and pork cinders, then add cut smoked meat. Mix it all up with strained peas and hulled grains. If „svarba“ seems to be too dry, you may add lard and mix it up again.

„Kuba“ with smoked meat

A traditional Christmas Eve meal from Podorlicko Lowlands.

300 g smoked meat, 300 g hulled grains, 2 spoons of lard, 2 onions, handful of dried mushrooms, 2 cloves garlic, 3 eggs, lard (to grease the tray with)

Cook smoked meat in the water, take it out and cook hulled grains in the broth. Strain and rinse it, in the bowl mix hulled grains and cooked into the cubes cut meat, onions, mushrooms stewed in the broth, ground garlic and salt. Move to the greased tray and bake for approximately 30 minutes. Pour with milk and whisked eggs and bake for approximately 15 minutes.

Trhanec

Trhanec is an Old Czech meal and has a lot of regional variants. In Podkrkonoší Lowlands they used to eat trhanec with plum compote sprinkled with ground poppy.

250 ml milk, a bit salt, 5 eggs, flour or fine-grained semolina, butter, sugar, fruit, fruit juice, compote

Mix egg, salt and flour or semolina in milk as needed so to make the dough. Heat the butter on the frying pan, pour the dough and bake for a while then tear the dough with two forks and fry from all sides. Fried pieces have to have crust. Sprinkle with sugar. Put fresh fruit on the top, pour with the fruit juice or fruit compote.

Jáhelník with plums

Jáhelník is one of the oldest Christmas ceremonial meals. It used to be served as one of the magical dishes at the ceremony of winter solstice.

1 l milk, 250 g millet grains, ½ teaspoon of salt, 120 g sugar, 2 eggs, lemon skin, 30 g sugar, 250 g dried plums, fat to grease with

Pour hot water over the millet grains three times and add to the cold milk. Put it on the stove, add a bit of salt and scald to mash. Stir sugar, grated lemon skin, fat, yolks and from egg whites meringue to the mash. Finally add dried in the warm water dipped plums. Grease the tray with fat and fill in with the mixture. Bake in a well heated oven for ¾ hour.

Vyběhlík

Vyběhlík is named after the dough which in the course of baking „runs out“ to big bubbles which after taking out of the oven crack.

150 g semi-coarse flour, 3 eggs, 0,25 l milk, 1 spoon of sandy sugar, a bit salt, fruit (fresh, frozen or pickled), fat to grease the baking bowl with, cinnamon sugar to sprinkle with.

Whisk egg in milk, add flour, a bit salt and make fine dough. Pour in greased bowling tray, put the fruit on the top and bake in a preheated oven until the top gets light brown. Divide into portions, sprinkle with cinnamon sugar and serve immediately.

Potato gnocchi – kucmoch

Potato gnocchi or kucmoch is a meal from potato batter sprinkled with poppy and sugar.

1 kg potatoes, 200 g coarse flour, 80 g lard (or oil or butter), 30 g poppy, 30 g confectioners´ sugar, salt

Cook peeled and cut potatoes in minimum salted water not too soft. After cooking drain the water in a bowl, sprinkle them with flour, with the ladle make the holes to the very bottom, pour in a bit of drained water (approximately up to the half) and leave them on the warm stove for approximately 10 minutes. Drain spare water, mash potatoes thoroughly with flour and mix them so that the dough is smooth and thick. With the spoon soaked in lard cut the potato gnocchi, put them in the bowl, grease them and sprinkle with poppy and confectioner´s sugar.

„Poor knights with plum butter“

It is a simple and cheap dish. It used to be served as the main course or as something sweet.

8 buns, plum butter, 2 eggs, milk to wet with, 3 spoons of water, frying fat, breadcrumbs

Slice the buns, spread with plum butter and join two pieces together. Sprinkle them with milk and soak in eggs which you whisked with a bit of water, coat in breadcrumbs and swiftly fry.

Cakes with carrot filling with apples

Dough: 1 kg semi-coarse flour, salt, 150 g sugar, 150 g shortening fat, 4 yolks, 50 g yeast, milk as needed, flour for the rolling board, butter for the baking tray, confectioner´s and vanilla sugar (to sprinkle with)

Filling: 300 g carrots, 300 g apples, lemon skin, 2 spoons of jam, 50 g raisins

First prepare yeast. With a spoon of sugar break the yeast into the little amount of milk, cover it and let it rise. Add sugar, warmed fat, mixed yolks and salt to the bowl with flour. With the lukewarm and risen yeast make the medium-thick dough which you leave at a slightly warm place to rise for at least an hour. Roll the risen dough on a 1 cm thick layer, cut the squares out of it; put the carrot filling with apples on the top and let is rise again. Approximately after half an hour put the cakes on the greased baking tray, grease them with the butter, put them in the oven and bake slowly. When baked and partly cooled down sprinkle them with confectioner´s and vanilla sugar mixed together.

The preparation of the filling: finely grate well cleaned carrots, coarsely grate peeled apples and complete with jam and washed raisins. Mix all up thoroughly.

Raised apple cake

Dough: 20 g yeast, 1 spoon of sugar, 4 spoons of milk, 400 g flour, salt, 40 g lard, 40 g confectioner´s sugar, 1 egg, lemon skin, approximately 250 ml milk, baking tray fat, confectioner´s and vanilla sugar (to sprinkle with)

Filling: 750 g apples, 150 g sugar, cinnamon

Break the yeast into lukewarm milk with sugar. Cover it and let it rise. Sprinkle flour with salt into the bowl; add heated lard, sugar, whisked egg and lemon skin. With the risen yeast and lukewarm milk process the thinner dough. Let it rise for approximately ¾ hour. Grease the tray with the fat well; spread the dough on the tray and let is rise for a while. Put grated and peeled apples evenly on the dough, sprinkle them with sugar and cinnamon. Let it rise again and in 15 minutes approximately spread the corners of the cake with the fat, put it in the oven and slowly bake. Let the cake cool down and before serving sprinkle with confectioner´s and vanilla sugar mixed together.

Hořické amprecle

Amprecle used to be put in the bowl and sprinkled with sugar. They looked very opulent as such. They only used to be prepared at christenings.

300 g semi-coarse flour, 150 g coarse flour, 120 g butter, 20 g confectionary ammonium, 2 eggs, lemon skin, milk as needed

Mix sugar, fat and eggs, add flour to which you added confectionary ammonium, mould thick dough and put in the fridge to cool it down. Separate the dough in small pieces and make in a small ball from which make a roll and wind in the shape of glasses = amprecle. Press in the middle and at both ends, put on the paper and put it in a cool place to let it become stiffer. Then turn it, roll in width, add egg and dip in natural sugar. Bake in the oven at 180°C.

Miletínské prayers

Miletínské little prayers got their name thanks to its similarity to prayer´s books of pocket format.

Dough: 250 g honey, 125 ml water, 4 yolks, 250 g sugar, 900 g flour, 15 g confectioner´s ammonium, 50 g candied orange skin, 50 g ground almonds, lemon skin, spices – cloves, cinnamon, anise, star anise

Filling: jam, sponge biscuits, water, rum, nuts, ginger bits, honey, raisins, candied orange skin

Scald honey with water and put aside. Mix yolks with sugar to the foam, add confectioner´s ammonium, finely sliced orange skin, grated lemon skin, almonds, spices, cooled honey and slowly process flour. Leave the dough on the side, roll the 4mm layer, cut „little prayers“ with a rectangular or square cookie cutter, put on the greased baking tray and spread with the whisked egg. Decorate the half with peeled almonds. Bake and when cooled down join with jam. Decorate with almonds on the top.

Grandma´s twice honourable cakes

The cakes deserve respect of every eater right twice. First when you taste the delicious plum butter and secondly when the cottage cheese filling melts on your tongue.

Dough: 700 g flour, 300 g semi-coarse flour, 500 ml milk, 150 g sugar, 6 spoons of oil, 3 spoons of melted butter, 1 vanilla sugar, 3 yolks, 50 g yeast, 1 spoon of salt, lemon skin, flour to sprinkle the rolling board with, 1 egg for spreading and fat on the tray

Filling: poppy, plum butter, curd cheese

Warm up the milk and in 200 ml mix 2 spoons of sugar and 1 spoon of semi-coarse flour and add broken yeast. Stir the mixture and at the warm place let yeast arise. Into the bowl pour both flours, make the hole where you pour yolks, mix it all up and add risen yeast, the rest of milk, sugar, butter, oil, lemon skin, vanilla sugar and salt. Make the dough and let it rise for an hour. From the risen dough roll out 1,5 cm thick layer and cut circles of the average 6 cm. Complete the circles with the filling and close. Put the cake on the greased baking tray, create the hole at the top and with the spoon put in the filling which you change. Spread with egg the corners and let it rise for another 10 minutes. Bake in the preheated oven according to the thickness and amount of filling.

Hradec Králové Region