Coconut cubes

• 3 egg yolks
• 5 oz / 150 g butter
• 10 oz / 300 g sugar
• 4 oz / 100 g ground walnuts
• 1 cup / 250 ml milk
• 3 egg whites
• 1 lb and 2 oz / 500 g high gluten flour
• 1 baking powder (0.5 oz / 12 g)

For the topping:

• 2 pieces of shortening (9 oz / 250 g each )
• 10 tbsp cocoa powder
• 10 tbsp rum
• shredded coconut and confectioner’s sugar for covering

Mix egg yolks, butter and sugar well, then add the ground walnuts, milk and whipped egg whites. Then gently mix in the flour with the baking powder. Grease baking tin and dust it with first clear flour. Place the dough into the tin and bake by 325°F/170°C till well done. It goes quickly. I always check with wooden skewer, if nothing sticks it’s done. Place the cake on a grid and let it rest till next day.

Next day melt one of the shortening pieces in a hot water bath. The water must not be too hot and no water must go into the bowl with the shortening. Add 5 tbsp of cocoa powder and 5 tbsp of rum, one after another mixing well with whisk. If the topping curdles usually helps to add some chocolate and whisk again. Cut the cake into cubes, place each cube on a wooden skewer and put into the topping and right afterwards cover with mixture of shredded coconut and confectioner’s sugar. If you run out of the topping, make another from the next piece of shortening, cocoa powder and rum.

I have never done this cubes before I met my man. It was his family recipe and he loves them. It is a necessary part of Christmas in his family, so I learned to make them from his sister. And we all love them too! Although as the time goes I do put inside much less sugar and more ground walnuts, because THIS original recipe is far too sweet for me. Well, nobody made complaints 🙂

Goulash Soup

• 10 – 12 oz beef shin
• salt
• freshly ground pepper
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 1 tbsp fat (lard)
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 2 tbsp all-purpose flour
• 3 cloves of garlic, crushed
• 1 tbsp ground sweet paprika
• 2 pints beef broth
• marjoram
• 2 potato, diced

Clean the meat and cut it in 1/4 in cubes, add salt and ground pepper. Fry the onion on the lard till golden, add cumin and meat and fry till all the juice evaporates. Fry another 3 minutes till golden, add the flour and fry brown. Add the garlic, sweet paprika (if you like it hot add a pinch or two of ground hot pepper), stir and add the beef stock. Stir again, add salt, pepper up to your taste and bring to boil. Reduce the heat and let the soup simmer at least 25 minutes. After 10 minutes of simmering add marjoram (dried, if you have fresh add at the end) and diced potato. Once the potato is cooked the soup is ready to be served.

We like it most with a roll and a cold beer afterwards. It is also excellent to cure a hangover 😉

Potato pancakes

• 1 lb / 500 g peeled potatoes
• 4 oz / 100 g all-purpose flour
• 1 egg
• 5 tbsp milk
• salt
• ground pepper
• marjoram
• garlic
• fat

Finely grate the peeled potatoes on grater, let stand for a while and drip off on a strainer. Put in a bowl and add flour, milk an egg, season with salt, pepper, marjoram and pressed garlic. Mix well. On a frying pan with hot fat fry pancakes approx. 1/4 in thick till they are golden. The potato pancake has to be crunchy right after frying, therefore serve promptly. You can add into the prepared dough finely cut smoked meat or greaves.

I did not have smoked meat and do not like greaves, so this time the potato pancakes were plain but delicious anyway. Here in the Czech Republic we eat them just so, with some vegetable salad or as a side dish to goulash, spinach etc.

 

Noodle pudding with cream cheese

• 1 lb / 500 g  wide noodles, e.g. tagliatelle
• salt
• butter
• breadcrumbs
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup / 250 ml milk
• confectioner’s sugar

For the cheese filling you need:

• 1 lb / 500 g cream cheese
• 1 egg
• confectioner’s sugar
• lemon peel
• nutmeg
• raisins
• milk if needed

Prepare the noodles according the package info and grease them with 1 tbsp butter. Now let’s make the filling. Mix the cream cheese with one egg, add sugar, lemon peel, raisins and nutmeg to your taste. If the mixture is too stiff add some milk, but the cheese must not be runny. At the bottom of greased pan (approx 13 x 8 in) poured with the breadcrumbs lay 1/3 of the cooked noodles top with 1/2 of the cheese filling, then add another 1/3 of the noodles and top with the second half of the cheese filling and as the last layer use the remaining noodles. Put the pudding in hot oven (375 F / 190 C / gas 5) and after the noodles on the top began to get golden color pour over them a mixture of 3 eggs, 1 cup of milk and sugar. Bake until the egg mixture is firm. If you have a sweet tooth you can sprinkle the top of the pudding with sugar too. If you do not like cream cheese you can use cooked apples instead.

Here in the Czech Republic we have a kitchen in every school and the kids get warm meal each noon and this is one of the school meals, therefore one loves it, the next one doesn’t. Me and my family does, how about you?

 

Murphy´s Law

Well, one of the Murphy´s Laws says: Anything that can go wrong will go wrong. I hope this blog is not such case.

I decided to present you the Czech recipes I have cooked so far. I was born in the Czech Republic and do still live here, although I have lived for shorter or longer time in Germany or UK. I will try to do my best to write the recipes in both units, continental and US. So, you can easily use the recipes. And the reason for this blog? I have looked through the Net and found that a lot of people show interest in Czech food but they complain about the recipes. The original Czech ones are published in a difficult format or with lots of mistakes hence unusable. The ones published by Americans with Czech origins are many times not Czech anymore, not to blame anybody. So I will try to do my best and show you the real Czech food as it was cooked even by my grandmothers and the contemporary one too.