Czech cuisine in Tampere

I decided to write at least one story in my blog in English. For several times we tried to cook some "Czech specialities" for our foreign friends. Actually, I spend more time by cooking than studying :) Therefore, it's a good idea to write something about it. I'll try to write some recipes here, but I'm sure, there will be some mistakes in translation...

Potato pancakes
This was our first Czech meal in Tampere, we cooked it in Mikontalo (Tomas' kitchen).

I don't have any pictures of our potato pancakes so I used a picture from City...

Ingredients
potatoes (1 kg)
garlic (3-5 pieces)
eggs (2)
salt
smooth flour (120 g)
pepper
marjoram
oil for frying

How to cook it?
Grate potatoes and garlic, put them into a big bowl and if it is possible, take away excess liquid from potatoes. Add eggs, salt, flour, pepper and marjoram and mix all together. Then fry pancakes in a pan with enough of oil, try to make as thin pancakes as possible.


Zelňačka (cabbage soup)
We cooked this soup also in Mikontalo on first official Czech dinner. In a very small apartment was a lot of people and we had to cook 4 pots of soup :)

Zelňačka :)

Ingredients
potatoes (250 g)
sour cabbage -German "sauerkraut" (500 g)
smoked meat (or some sausages)
cream
onion
salt
pepper
allspice

bay leaf

Cayenne pepper

smooth flour
carrot, mushrooms (optional)

How to cook it?
later

Ovocné knedlíky (sweat dumplings) 
We cooked this meal two times because first time we arrived later do the TOAS City and the international dinner was almost over so we decided to cook it once again on the Czech dinner in Lukonmäki. 

Ingredients
flour (500 g)
milk (250 ml)
sugar (one spoon)
egg (1)
yeast (20g)
salt
fruit (anything you like)
quark (or curd)
ground sugar
butter

How to cook it?
Put one spoon of sugar and yeast into lukewarm milk, mix it together and then wait 15 minutes. After that add flour, egg and a pinch of salt and make dough. Let the dough rise about 30 minutes.
Then roll the dough and cut it into small circles (or squares like 4x4 cm), put some fruit on it and wrap it inside the dough and create a ball or something similar :) Then put this "balls" into boiling water for 5-10 minutes (depends on size of dumplings). 
In the end, mix quark and sugar and put it on dumplings with melted butter.


Bramborové knedlíky s uzeninou (potato dumplings with smoked meat)

I don't have my own picture so I stole this from the internet...

Ingredients
potatoes (5-6)
flour (200 g)
semolina (50 g)
eggs (2)
smoked meat (300 g)
salt

sour cabbage
onions

How to cook it?
Cook unpeeled potatoes, then peel them and grate. Add flour, semolina, eggs and salt and try to make a dough.  Then roll the dough and cut it into small circles (or squares like 4x4 cm), put some meat on it and wrap it inside the dough and create a ball or something similar :) Then put this "balls" into boiling water for 5-15 minutes (depends on size of dumplings). 
You can serve these dumplings with sour cabbage and fried onion. You can also cook the sour cabbage  for a while.

Buchta z čokolády Margot (also known as "My mom's cake")
Unfortunetely I don't have a picure :(


Ingredients
flour (400 ml)
sugar (200 ml)
milk (100 ml)
oil (50 ml)
eggs (2)
condensed milk (200 ml)
vanilla sugar
baking powder
chocolate Margot :)

How to cook it?
Well it's really easy, grate chocolate Margot and put all the ingredients together. Bake 20 minutes in oven on 180 °C. Thickness of this cake should be like 1-2 cm so use a big roasting pan (I hope it's a correct word). And I'm not sure if you can buy chocolate Margot somewhere else than in Czech Republic or Slovakia...

Sýrové tyčinky (cheese sticks)
Somebody might remember these snacks from our birthday party. It's really simple to prepare.

Ingredients
baking margarine (something like 80% fat)
flour (smooth)
cheese (Edam is usually OK)
eggs
salt
cumin

How to cook it?
Grate cheese finely, add egg, flour and margarine and make the dough. You need the same amount of margarine and flour (for example 500 grams of each) and like 80% of cheese, so for example 400 grams. Then roll the dough (it should be really thin) and cut small sticks of it. Bake approximately 15 minutes (180 °C). Be careful because if you will bake too long, the cheese inside would get bitter.