Bacon Biscuit (Škvarkovník)
Ingredients: 1lb flour, yeast, ground-up bacon bits
Prep Time: 30 minutes to an hour for the dough to rise, some 20 minutes to prepare the biscuits, another 20 minutes for dough rising and finally 20 minutes for baking.
In Slovakia, we make this amazing bacon-flavored biscuit (pagáč) called škvarkovník. The name is derived for the word for bacon bits, škvarky. When done properly, the biscuits are extremely fluffy and the dough comes apart in layers. I actually like to eat them like that, layer-by-layer.
To make these biscuits, you will need ground up bacon bits. These are quite easy to find in Slovakia. They come in a margarine-sized tub, as shown in the photos below. However, I don’t know if anything like this available in the States. You can probably start off by buying bacon bits and grinding them up yourself.
As with any leavened dough, start off by preparing the yeast culture, kvások. This is done by dissolving the packet of yeast in luke-warm milk and adding about a teaspoon of sugar. Once it bubbles up (as in the recipe for knedla), add it to your flour (múka). Then add about two table spoons worth of bacon bits (škvarky) cooked with butter (masľo). Add a dash of salt and enough water (voda) to end up with dough having the consistency shown on the right.
Next let the dough rise. This will take somewhere between 30 minutes to an hour, depending on the temperature of your room. My grandma fills a pot with hot water, and places the dough on top of it to speed up the process. Roll the dough out to a pancake approximately the width of your finger. Use a pastry brush (one made out of goose feathers works great!) to spread on a layer of bacon bits dissolved with butter.
Fold the outer end over one third of the way. Spread the bacon sauce onto this side and fold the bottom third over.
You now have a dough rectangle containing two layers of the bacon sauce. Spread on another layer on top and then roll the dough into a cylinder.
Take this cylinder and hand pat it down into a circular shape. Then take a rolling pin and roll the dough out to about an inch thick. Don’t forget to work on a surface dusted with flour and to dust the top of the dough to keep the pin from sticking. Take a drinking glass and also stick it in flour. Use a circular motion to cut out the biscuits. This is identical to making pierogi.
Place the biscuits onto a greased baking pan. Let rise for about 20 minutes. In the mean time, preheat your oven. My grandma likes to bake them on the bottom and they took only about 20 minutes in her wood burning stove. Serve pagáče as a snack or instead of bread with soups.
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Posted by lubos Date: Monday, February 22, 2010
Flat Bread and Rolls (Osúch a Rožky)
Ingredients: bread dough, caraway seeds, oil, salt
Prep Time: 30 minutes for baking
We had some dough left over from making bread, so we used it to make osúch (dry flat bread) and rožky (bread rolls). Rožky are very popular in Slovakia. They look like tiny baguettes and are eaten with salads.
Lightly roll out a piece of dough to make a pancake about half inch thick. Move onto a greased baking sheet.
Grease, salt and top with few caraway seeds (rasca).
To make rožky, take smaller pieces of dough and roll them into cylinders. Let rise for some 10 minutes.
Bake in a preheated oven for 15 minutes, or until the rolls and the bread get nicely golden brown. Bake at fairly low heat, about 150F.
The osúch was delicious. We finished most of it before the day was over.
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Posted by lubos Date: Saturday, January 9, 2010
Bread (Chlieb)
Ingredients: 2lb flour, pack of yeast, milk, sugar, caraway
Prep Time: 2 hours
Good bread is hard to find in America. At least, if you don’t want to spend upward of 5 dollars for a tiny artisan loaf. So I had my grandmother show me how to bake bread. In this recipe, I show you how to make bread at home, without the use of any fancy gizmos. All you need is flour, egg and yeast, and the will to get your hands a little dirty.
Place 2lbs of flour (múka) into a large container. Prepare the yeast mixture (kvások) by dissolving yeast in a bit of warm milk (mlieko) or water (voda, we used water). Also add a teaspoon of sugar (cukor) and caraway seeds (rasca). Grandma also used a small amount of mashed potatoes left over from making breaded steak. Supposedly mashed potatoes help the bread not get crumbly.
Knead the ingredients using your hands until you get a smooth dough that easily separates from the pot. Dust the top with flour.
Cover, and let rise for about an hour. Then scoop out onto a wooden board generously covered with flour.
Roll the dough over and over for about 15 minutes until various deformities get smoothed out. Shape into a loaf.
Place the loaf into a baking pan few inches deep. Grease all around. Let rise. If you feel creative, you can use a knife to cut in some designs.
Place on the bottom rack of a stove preheated to 200F. Then lower the temperature to 150F for baking. Bake for 40 minutes. You can check if the bread is done by running some stick down the middle and seeing if any dough sticks to it (it shouldn’t). Brush water onto the crust of the finished bread to soften the crust. Skip this step if you like your crust hard. Note: Temperatures listed here are the estimates my grandma gave me. We baked the bread in a wood burning stove. We started baking at “a lot of logs” and finished at “fewer logs”. I’ll post an update once I make bread back in the States..
And that’s it. Here is the typical old-fashioned Slovak breakfast: home baked bread, butter and smoked cheese.
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