Vepřo knedlo zelo (Pork dumpling cabbage)

Vepřo knedlo zelo is Moravian (part of Czechia) national dish. It consists of “sweet” cooked cabbage (as the opposite of sour made from sauerkraut), bread dumpling and a larger cut of pork meat. There are number of variants, such as using sauerkraut instead of fresh cabbage, using various cuts of pork, such as pork belly (called bůček, get the one that has still a lot of meat on it), diced fatty pork called výpečky or with duck and red cabbage (which has milder, sweeter taste). You can also use potato dumpling instead of bread dumpling, but believe it or not, I think that potato dumpling is much more finicky to make and I kind of like bread dumpling more.

Now, to the recipe. I will describe here how to make the cabbage and meat. Since a lot of people asked about dumplings, I will describe them separately here.

Cabbage

Ingredients

  • 1 kg of cabbage (small head or bigger half)
  • 1 larger onion
  • 5 spoons of sugar
  • 4 spoons of vinegar
  • 2 spoons of salt
  • 3/4 litre of water
  • oil for frying
  • 1 spoon of flour for thickening (optional)
  • caraway (optional)

Directions

  • Grate cabbage, but with a knife and not with a grater. You do it by cutting cabbage in half (or quarters) and slice off parts of it to get kind of sticks. They do not need to be (and in fact shouldn’t) extra thin, you will cook that for long enough for them to soften.
  • Chop onion (bigger cubes are enough) and fry it in a big pot until the onion is glassy.
  • Then add shredded cabbage (as much as you can), water and stew. By stewing, the volume of cabbage is significantly reduced so after a while you can add the rest of cabbage.
  • Add sugar, vinegar, salt, caraway and cook until cabbage is soft. Add more water if required.
  • When cabbage is almost done, add a spoon of flour (mixed in a bit of cold water) to thicken the sauce. The amount of water should be significantly reduced by now and cabbage should not swim. If there is still too much water, remove the lid and let it evaporate.

Pork

You can use:

  • Bigger piece of relatively lean pork
  • Diced fatty pork
  • Pork belly (with skin)

In all cases, the directions are relatively the same.

Ingredients

  • 0.5 kg of pork
  • 1 onion
  • 2-3 cloves of garlic
  • salt (about teaspoon)
  • pepper
  • oil
  • caraway
  • water

Directions

  • Massage the salt, pepper, garlic, caraway and oil into the meat.
  • Get a baking bowl with lid. Pour some oil, put onion there and then the meat. Add some water so that the meat is about halfway under the water.
  • Bake for 1-2 hours. Turn it around periodically. When the meat is almost ready and is falling apart, remove the lid to give the meat some crust.

Note that if you are cooking pork belly, you need to clean the skin carefully from hair and then cut the skin with checkboard pattern. This way it will roast nicely and more quickly.