Kulajda

Ingredients

• Wild mushrooms400 g
• Potatoes600 g
• Soured cream300 ml
• Flour2 tbsp
• Dill50 g
• Eggs5
• Vinegar3 tbsp
• Caraway seeds1 tsp
• Bay leaf2
• Sugar1 tsp
• Butter40 g
• Salt and pepperto taste

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Boil the diced potato in a litre and a half of water with the caraway and bay for fifteen minutes.

   18 min

2. 2

   Fry the sliced mushrooms in butter until their water has gone and add them to the pot.

   12 min

3. 3

   Cook them together ten minutes so the mushrooms give their flavour to the broth.

   12 min

4. 4

   Whisk the soured cream with the flour until smooth and lump-free.

   4 min

5. 5

   Take the soup off the heat, stir in the cream mixture, return it to a low flame and warm it five minutes without boiling.

   8 min

6. 6

   Add the vinegar, sugar, salt, pepper and most of the dill and taste for the balance of sour against creamy.

   5 min

7. 7

   Poach the eggs in acidulated water and set one into each bowl, scattered with the remaining dill.

   12 min

About the dish

The soured cream goes in slaked with flour and into a pot taken off the heat. Poured into boiling soup it splits, and the smoothness cannot be recovered.

The vinegar is not an incidental note but a required part: it makes the soup sour-creamy, and without it kulajda is simply a mushroom soup with cream.

The egg is poached separately in acidulated water and set into the bowl. Cooked in the soup itself it clouds it and loses its shape.

Worth knowing

• — Use twice as much dill as seems right. It is not a garnish here but one of the main flavours, alongside the mushrooms.
• — Dried mushrooms work as well as fresh. Soak them and strain the soaking water straight into the soup.
• — Kulajda is never boiled once the cream is in, neither at first cooking nor at reheating. Warm it only to hot.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

420 kcal

Protein

14 g

Fat

26 g

Carbs

34 g

More from Czechia

• Svíčková na smetaně — Beef in a purée of root vegetables with cream, served with dumplings, lingonberry and lemon.
• Trdelník — A ribbon of yeasted dough wound round a spit, baked and rolled in sugar and nuts.
• Pork with dumplings and cabbage — Braised pork with bread dumplings and soured cabbage. Czechia's unofficial national dish.