Czech Cuisine - Side Dishes

Side Dishes

Dumplings (knedlíky) (steamed and sliced a bit bread-like dumplings) are one of the mainstays of Czech cuisine and are quite often served with meals. They can be wheat or potato based, and are sometimes made from a combination of wheat flour and stale bread or rolls (Also puffed rice is sometimes found in store dumpling mixtures). In contrast to Austrian cuisine, the type that is larger and served cut into slices (instead of smaller quenelles) occurs more often. The smaller dumplings are usually potato-based. Slices of dumplings were often penfried when served in family as leftover or (this does not concern potato dumplings) fried with egg (cut into pieces).

Ball like potato dumplings are filled with smoked meat or spinach or sour cabbage etc., it is served with fried onion, braised cabbage or cooked spinach.

There is many other side dishes. Noodles (Nudle)

Rice (rýže), served simply boiled or made as Risotto (rizoto) or sometimes as Rýžový nákyp - Rice cake with fruit.

Potatoes (brambory) are easy and fast to grow in Czech Climate. They are served boiled with salt and butter or oil. Baked or boiled and mixed into (mashed potatoes) called bramborová kaše. New potatoes are sometimes boiled cleaned not peeled, from their harvest maximally up to new year. Due to influence from foreign countries are also fried so French fries and croquettes are common also in restaurants.

Buckwheat (pohanka) and millet grains (jáhly) are not very often served in restaurants, they are cooked in families with healthier lifestyle.

Pasta (těstoviny) is common. Cooked, baked with other ingredients, or served as salad with other, not only with vegetable ingredients. There are different shapes and flavours. This an influence of Italian and Asian cuisine (rice and buckwheat noodles are not common but getting more and more known). There is also produced gluten free pasta from corn flour/starch and/or potatoes/potato starch starch and rice flour.