These open face sandwiches are called obložené chlebíčky which means garnished small breads. And indeed, the bread pieces are much smaller, they are often made by slicing baguettes and topping them with a variety of meats, cheeses, vegetables, and hard boiled eggs. These sandwiches date back to the Middle Ages, times before plates and utensils became common. In those days, a piece of flat bread was used as a plate onto which various baked meats were placed. This bread/meat combination evolved into the modern open face sandwich…

Ingredients: French/Italian bread, butter, mustard, ham, sausage, hard boiled egg, smoked Gouda, Brie, red pepper toppers, pickles
Prep Time: 15 minutes

There is really not much to making chlebíčky. Just grab some bread, some spread such as butter and mustard, your favorite salami or ham, and toppings such as the red peppers in a jar. Also slices of hard-boiled egg. Feel free to make some meatless (butter, egg, and cheese is a great combination). Add hot chocolate and you got yourself a tasty Slovak breakfast!

And just couple more photos. The one on the right is of me few years ago eating open face chlebíčky in Slovakia after finishing the Košice Marathon. They tasted great! The other person in the photo is my grandma who is a huge inspiration for many recipes on this site.

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Hi Lubos

I lived in Banská Bystrica for 12 years from 1994 to 2006 and since then I’ve been living in China. I’ve decided I want to introduce my Chinese girlfriend to the wonders of Slovak food and that’s how, today, I came across your fantastic site. I’m going to start easy tomorrow and cook some haruľa, then go buy some edam for vyprážaný syr the day after.

However, my question for your is, did you ever eat a Zapekanka from the buffet under the archway on Národná Ulica? It’s been driving me crazy trying to remember how they made it, but to make matters worse, I had a very good friend who used to work there, who sadly I’ve lost touch with.

Hopefully you can help jog my memory and I thank you regardless for your amazing efforts in putting all these recipes together..

Best wishes

Neil

I knew exactly which buffet Neil was talking about! Buffets like these are common throughout Slovakia. One of my favorites in Banská Bystrica (my hometown) is the one outside Starý Prior (meaning “Old Prior”, Prior is a communist-era department store, this one is still in existence). That buffet sells delicious fried dough langoše.

But since it’s been few years since I’ve had zapekanka (roughly meaning something that is baked), I recruited a small army of friends and relatives in Slovakia to find the recipe. I’ve got a bunch of responses (thank you all!) but eventually settled on a recipe from mimibazar that my friend Janka sent in. Another recipe, sent in by my sister, was similar but only had mushrooms – good choice if you are vegetarian.

Ingredients: one small onion, sliced mushrooms (Neil said in his response that oyster mushrooms work the best, I used portobellas), 3 strips bacon, 3 slices of ham, clove of garlic, pinch of caraway seeds, pinch of cayenne pepper, salt, black pepper, bread rolls or rožky, cream cheese, block cheese like edam, colby, or brie, tomato (optional)
Prep Time: about 30 minutes

Peel and finely chop the onion (cibuľa). Fry it on oil along with bacon (slanina) till both start turning yellow. Then add sliced mushrooms (pokrájané hríby), ham (šunka) chunks, salt and pepper, and also a pinch of caraway and red pepper. Also add one clove of garlic (strúčik cesnaku), minced. Cover and let simmer until the mushrooms get soft.

Slice the bread rolls, baguettes, or, even better, home-made rožky, in half and spread cream cheese (syrokrém) on them. Except I didn’t have any so I topped 4 with butter (maslo) and 2 with mayonnaise (majonéza). I also spread horseradish on one of them, just to experiment. Let the mushroom mixture cool off for few minutes and then spoon it onto the bread rolls.

Cover each roll with slices of cheese (syr). I used Colby on 3, Edam on 2, and Brie on 1. I also topped two rolls with sliced tomatoes (paradajky). I figured you can never go wrong with toasted tomatoes. Then toast in the oven until the cheese melts. The recipe said to bake the rolls for 8 minutes, but I figured that broiler would work better, so that’s what I did.

And that’s it, super simple! Top them with ketchup (or tartar sauce) before eating. Enjoy!

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I find this quite interesting. When I was growing up in Slovakia, the main use for radishes (reďkovky) was: sandwich topping. Bread topped with slices of this root vegetable known for its tangy, sharp flavor, makes for a great light breakfast, especially when coupled with a glass of warm milk or hot chocolate.

Ingredients: bread, butter, radishes
Prep Time: One minute

There is not much to this “recipe”. Wash the radishes, cut off the ends, and slice into pieces about 3 mm thick. Spread butter on a slice of good wheat bread, top with radishes, salt, eat. That’s it.

As a side note, radishes are extremely easy to grow! I had two small 6×3 foot plots at my previous house, and without knowing anything about gardening, I planted bunch of radishes (and also tomatoes, potatoes, strawberries, dill and onions). This small garden supplied me with fresh veggies for most of the summer.

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But this is too bad. Lard (masť) was a popular cooking ingredient of our European and American predecessors. Despite the negative image of this natural shortening, lard actually contains less saturated fat than butter by weight (source Wikipedia). Lard used to used in baking, for frying, and as a substitute for butter.

It is this substitute for butter that is still very popular throughout Slovakia. Visit a traditional Slovak pub (such as my dad’s restaurant in Banská Bystrica), and there is a good chance you’ll be offered a free appetizer consisting of bread topped with salted lard (chlieb s masťou). This popular beer snack is served in fashion similar to chips and salsa in Mexican-themed restaurants in the US.

Below you’ll find the “recipe”. Lard is nothing more than solidified bacon fat rendered during making of pork cracklings, or when frying bacon. Instead of dumping the grease, save it in a glass jar, and place in the fridge overnight to solidify. Then just use it wherever you would use butter.

Spread the lard on bread the same way you would butter, add few shakes of salt, enjoy. If you want, you can also top the bread with slices of onions or chives (pažítka, pictured here). Some people even mix in paprika, similar to how the bryndza spread is made.

Enjoy with beer or whenever you are in the mood for a snack.

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Another popular thing to do with bryndza, the Slovak national cheese, is to make a spread (nátierka) commonly known as šmirkáš. I made it using the fake bryndza – the Israeli style Feta cheese from Trader Joe’s.

Finely slice onions (I like using spring onions and I used three of them) and combine them with about equal amounts of bryndza and butter. Also add a spoonful of paprika. You should use less than what I have here.

Mix together, and voile – done! The spread shouldn’t be so red (should be more pinkish), but unfortunately I did not have any more bryndza to dilute my little paprika pouring accident. If you serve the spread on bread rolls, you can either slice them in the middle, like shown in the olovrant post, or you can spread the nátierka on top of the roll.

That’s it. This is a very simple, yet very traditional Slovak recipe.

Update June 6th, 2010

And this is what the spread should look like when you make it right.

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