This creamy, silky, sweet and aromatic sauce is my Czech favorite. Trust me it is worth traveling all the way from where you are to the Czech Republic to taste it. Serving this kind of dill-cream sauce warm is quite unique in the world. Above all, it goes perfectly with beer, or two.
Eating and cooking this sauce bring back my childhood memories. Pictures of my grandma in the kitchen, my grandad working in our big garden, me lying in the grass under the apple trees ocures in front of my eyes. My granny used to cook this sauce for my grandad. Every time the whole house smelled so nice.
This is very traditional Czech meal but still very modern, based on local and seasonal ingrediences. We serve this sauce differently in summer and in winter. In summer we eat lighter version with new potatoes and poached eggs and in winter with dumplings and cooked beef. Both taste fatastic.
Sauce and meat
Only few ingredinces are needed. It might be helpful to cook the meat/broth one day ahead as at least 4 hours are needed. Clean the meat. and put it into the lightly salted cold water (in one piece). Bring to a boil over low heat. Skim foam as it rises to the top of the water. When boiling, reduce the heat and simmer for 4 hours until the meat is tender. Do not cover when simmering. After 4 hours you will have aproximately 1 liter of strong broth.
Your meat and broth are ready. You are ready for the sauce. Melt the butter in a saucepan and add sugar and vinnegar. Bring it to a boil and then add broth. Bring to a boil again and than pour milk and season with salt and pepper. Let it simmer and prepare toast bread. Cut off the crust of the bread and pull the bread into small pieces.
Now it is time to thicken the sauce by adding almost all pieces of bread. Cook the sauce with bread for another 8 – 10 minutes. Than use food processor to blend the sauce so it is nice smooth. At this stage you can still add bread or broth if you feel so. Pour the souce through the sieve so it is really smooth. If there are still some pieces of the bread in the sauce, press them through the sieve using the other side of the spoon. Then cook over very low heat.
Cut the dill leaves into small pieces and add them with the cream into the sauce. Bring it to a boil and it is ready to serve. Do not cook it for a long time as you want the dill to taste fresh and intensive.
This sauce tastes sweet, just a bit sauer and smells beautifuly.
Dumplings
These dumplings are so easy to make and they can accompany many kinds of sauces. Cut toast bread into small pieces (1 x 1 x 1 cm) and roast them on the pan with a bit of oil till they are light golden brown. I do not make all at once. Do not put too much oil into the pan so the dumplings won’t fall apart. Cut the onion into small pieces. Let the butter melt in the pan over medium heat, then add onion and cook it until soft. When the onion is ready add parsley for one minute into the pan and take the pan off the heat. Add onion and parsley to the toast bread and mix.
Mix together milk, eggs and salt. Pour the mixture over the toast bread with onions and parsley and leave it stand for 5 minutes. Finally add just a bit of flour, just enough that you can form the dough. Make a balls which are 5 – 6 cm in diameter. Put them in the boiling salted water. Lower the heat and cook them covered with the pot. Cook for 20 minutes. Take them out using sieve or slotted spoon. Be aware that the dumplings are very soft at this moment and leave them sit and cool for a while. They will become the right consistency. Cut them into halves or slice them and serve.
Recipe of Koprová omáčka inspired by executive chef Titus Eliáš and dumplings by Hana Michopulu.
Traditional Czech Creamy Sauce With Dill: Koprová omáčka
Ingredients
Koprová Sauce
- 800 g beef brisket
- 4 l water Cook the meat in this amout of water and at the end you get 1 liter of strong broth. You need 0,5 liter of broth for this recipe.
- 100 g butter
- 3 - 4 tablespoons sugar
- 4 tablespoons vinegar
- 100 ml milk
- salt
- pepper freshly grated
- 8 - 10 slices white toast bread Cut the crust off.
- 1 bunch fresh dill
- 300 ml cream
Dumplings
- 750 g white sandwich bread Cut into small cubes 1 x 1 x 1 cm.
- 4 tablespoons oil
- 1 onion middle size
- 50 g butter
- 1 handfull fresh parsley
- 3 eggs size M
- 300 ml mik
- 1/2 teaspoon salt for the dough
- 1 teaspoon salt for the water for the dumplings
- flour
Instructions
- Koprová omáčka
