Feels like home: Braised cabbage with fruit is Czech cuisine's answer to sweet and sour

Czech food is about making the most of what you have, from using the whole animal to making cabbage interesting.

Cabbage is a popular ingredient in Czech cuisine. Source: Supplied

When people think of Czech cuisine, they think of meat and potatoes. And they'd be right, but it's also a lot more complex than people give it credit for, according to Jakub Kosik, 37, of Beast&Co in Sydney. 

"Czech food, in general, is quite heavily protein-based, with heavy sauces and a lot of dumplings, but it's also a sophisticated way of cooking, that's comparable to French techniques," says Kosik, who grew up in Karlovy Vary in Bohemia in the west of the Czech Republic.

While nose-to-tail eating is now a movement, for the Kosik family growing up, it was a way to ensure there was always something to eat. Nothing went to waste.

"Our culture went through a rough patch. There was war, occupation and limited sources of food, so Czech cuisine evolved to use the whole animal. It's about taking basic ingredients and making them tastier and better."

His restaurant uses the same ethos. Beef tongue is cooked sous vide and chicken aspic, a traditional Czech pub snack, also features.

Literally from leftovers we are creating something to eat.

"When doing the chicken stock, we take part of it and use the older meat and cartilage with gelatin in it to thicken it. Instead of chucking it into the bin, we take it out and create a nice dish from it," Kosik says. "If we [don't] use it, it ends up in the bin and that's just not right. Literally from leftovers, we are creating something to eat."

During harder times, meat was scarce, so families made sure to use a whole animal. Kosik explains how a pig was typically utilised. "You will literally use everything from the nose to the tail, ears, stomach, lungs and blood. Everything is eaten because you can't afford to waste anything."

Come together over a Czech feast. Source: Supplied

Beast&Co features a duck dish that also uses the whole animal. "We buy the whole duck and pan fry the breast, and the fat we get from that adds extra flavour to the cabbage and duck fat potatoes."

The chefs slowly confit the legs for duck croquettes and then make a stock. "That's what we can get from one animal, literally nothing is wasted," he says. 

The dish is his take on his mum's traditional Sunday lunch. 

"In Czech, the duck is standing out. You are slowly, slowly roasting the whole duck in the oven for hours. If you know lunch is at 12pm, you wake up at 5am to make sure the duck is in the oven on time," he says.

The Kosik family typically eat duck with bread dumplings and cabbage. The roasting juices make a nice jus. "The whole family comes over. Grandma making a soft sponge with plums and young kids are going to the pub to get the beer. We were about eight years old, at the time it was acceptable, it was part of Czech culture and we'd take a sneaky sip of foam."

One of the sides served with the duck is cabbage with grapes. "Using fruits with cabbage is traditional, white cabbage with raisins is traditional with roasted goose. Red cabbage with grapes is something that stuck with me," Kosik says.

Czech cuisine evolved to use the whole animal. It's about taking basic ingredients and making them tastier and better.

Grapes go with other meat too. "Once, we got a wild boar from one of our friends so the whole family came over and we were cooking it. Mum used red grapes for red cabbage and white grapes for white cabbage, she cooked it once 25 years ago and I still remember it."

The fruit helps lighten a cabbage dish. "It's like sweet and sour. We not braising it for too long, so it's not soggy. It's a quick braise with some spices and finish it on the pan, so has slightly char for some crispiness and the fresh element is grapes and blackberries."

Kosik's partner Petra Kanalosova, 36, is from Znojmo, the Moravian part of the country. Her hometown cuisine also informs the menu. 

"My grandmother has a special technique of doing the [gnocchi]," Kanalosova says. "It was still potatoes and flour, but she would take the board and with a spoon take a little part of the dough and chuck it into the warm cooking water."

The gnocchi was tiny, like droplets. After three to five minutes, they would rise to the surface. "You can use a small colander with holes to push the dough and make small drops, but she was so fast she just used a spoon," she says. 

Her grandmother's gnocchi was flavoured with either Czech cabbage and speck, or cheese and speck. Beast&Co uses cabbage, speck and cheese in its own take on her dish.

"Our gnocchi are bigger than hers, but the flavour is the same," Kanalosova says. "She would be so happy if she would know her dish is on a menu in Australia."

  

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Photographs by Beast&Co.

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Braised red cabbage with duck breast

Serves 4

Ingredients

Braised red cabbage  

• 1 whole medium-sized red cabbage
• 2 tbsp duck fat 
• 3 bay leaf
• 2 tbsp caraway seeds 
• 250 ml water
• 2 tbsp caster sugar 
• ½ tbsp salt
• 50 mL white wine vinegar 
• Pepper to taste
• A handful of red grapes 

Method

1. Cut the red cabbage into thick slices.
2. Heat up a large pot with 2 tbsp of duck fat. 
3. Once the pot is hot, add the caraway seeds and cook them for a minute.
4. Add the sliced red cabbage and let the slices cook for 5 minutes or until they start to soften and break down. 
5. Lower the temperature to low heat; add the bay leaves, water, sugar, vinegar, salt and pepper, and mix well.
6. Seal the pot with a lid and continue to cook on low heat for about 20 minutes.
7. Add halved red grapes and mix well. Cook the mixture for another 10 minutes.
8. Season to taste and set aside.

Duck breast

• 4 medium-size duck breasts
• Pinch salt and pepper
• Sprinkle blackberries 

Method

1. Take the chicken breasts out from the fridge for at least 10-15 min before cooking.
2. Season the chicken breasts with salt and pepper.
3. Preheat your oven to 200°C. 
4. Put a large oven-proof fry pan on low heat but don't add oil.
5. Immediately put the breasts in, skin-side down.
6. Gradually increase the heat every 2-3 minutes until it reaches high heat.
7. Let the breasts fry for about 7 minutes or until the skin becomes golden brown and the fat is rendered down.
8. Turn the chicken breasts over and sear them for about 30 seconds.
9. Turn the chicken breasts again so they're skin side down and place the pan into the oven for about 6-8min so that the meat is medium-rare. 
10. Take the pan out, transfer the chicken breasts onto a plate, skin side up, and let them rest for about 4-6min. 
11. Thickly slice each chicken breast and place them on the top of the braised red cabbage.
12. Add a few blackberries and spoon quality red wine jus over the meat.