Recipe
🥙 LUNCH
Kulajda
A creamy, sharply sour South Bohemian soup of potatoes and mushrooms thick with dill, finished with vinegar and topped with a poached egg.
Czech · medium · serves 4
prep 20 min · cook 35 min
~502 cal · 11g protein · 24g carbs · 40g fat · 2g fiber · 5g sugars · 24g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Kulajda is a soup from South Bohemia, the pond and pine-forest country around Třeboň and the Šumava mountains, and it belongs to a wider central-European family of thickened sour soups. It is creamy and comforting, and then, unexpectedly, sharply sour and aggressively green with dill.
It is a soup built from a household inventory: potatoes, soured cream, dill from the garden, and wild mushrooms, especially porcini, gathered from the pine woods after rain. The base is a light broth of potatoes with caraway, bay and allspice, thickened with cream whisked with flour, then brought alive with a good splash of vinegar and a big handful of dill added right at the end so it keeps its perfume.
The finishing touch is a poached egg set in each bowl. The idea is that the runny yolk is a sauce you release yourself at the table, breaking it into the soup so it goes from sour and sharp to sour and rich in a single stir. A little sugar balances the vinegar, and the whole thing should read as distinctly sour, not like a mild cream soup.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally vegetarian and nut- and pork-free. No swaps needed.
Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.
🥕 Vegetarian
🌱 Vegan
🌾 Gluten-Free
🥛 Dairy-Free
🥜 Nut-Free
🥚 Egg-Free
🐖 Pork-Free
Dietary labels are a cooking guide, not allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish; we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, read the label on every product you use, and note that a kitchen can cross-contaminate in ways a recipe cannot control.
Ingredients
US
Metric
Serves 4
400 g waxy potatoes, peeled and cubed
1.2 litres water
30 g dried, or 250 g fresh dried porcini (or fresh mushrooms), sliced
40 g butter
2 tbsp plain flour
300 ml sour cream, at room temperature
1 large bunch (about 30 g) fresh dill, chopped
2 tbsp, plus more to taste white wine vinegar
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp caraway seeds
2 bay leaves
4 allspice berries
4 very fresh eggs (1 per bowl)
to taste salt and black pepper
Instructions
1
If using dried porcini, soak them in a little just-boiled water for 20 minutes; reserve the soaking liquid. Simmer the potatoes in the water with the caraway, bay, allspice and salt for about 12-14 minutes until tender.
2
Meanwhile, melt the butter and cook the mushrooms until browned. Add them (and the reserved soaking liquid) to the potato pot and simmer 5 minutes.
3
Whisk the flour into the sour cream until smooth, loosen with a ladle of hot broth, then stir back into the pot. Simmer gently 5 minutes to cook out the flour. Do not let it boil hard or the cream can curdle.
4
Stir in the vinegar, sugar and most of the dill. Taste: it should read distinctly sour, adding vinegar a teaspoon at a time if flat.
✎ Chef’s note
Add the dill at the very end, off or nearly off the heat, so it keeps its colour and perfume.
5
Poach the eggs in barely trembling water with a splash of vinegar for about 3 minutes, until the whites set and yolks stay runny.
6
Ladle the soup into bowls, slide a poached egg into each, and scatter over the remaining dill.
South Bohemian tradition (jihočeská kulajda).
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Bohemia. Bohemian beer has a precise birthday. The first pale lager was brewed in Plzen on 5 October 1842 by a Bavarian, Josef Groll, using Saaz hops and unusually soft local water, and poured for the first time that November. The town's name went on to label the style wherever it is now brewed.
🗺️
Czechia. Czech cooking is built for its beer, all roast pork, bread dumplings, sauerkraut, and rich gravies. Hearty, Central European, and unapologetically comforting, it centers the pub and the Sunday table.
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Europe. Europe has written a great deal of its food into law. A regulation of 1992 created the protected designation of origin and the protected geographical indication, tying a name to a place and a method, and an EU evaluation published in 2021 counted more than three thousand registered names across those schemes, from cheeses and hams down to particular shapes of bread.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
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KoláčeSoft sweet buns with a dimple of fruit, poppy seed, or sweet cheese filling.
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Browse all Czechia recipes →
Good to know
You’ll need: Pot or saucepan, Whisk.
Storing it: Soup keeps 3 to 4 days refrigerated and freezes well. Reheat gently and loosen with a little water or stock if needed.
Make it a Czechia meal
Ovocné KnedlíkyDessert
Bramboráky (Potato Pancakes)Dinner
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Cuisine
Diet
Frequently asked questions
What is Kulajda?
A creamy, sharply sour South Bohemian soup of potatoes and mushrooms thick with dill, finished with vinegar and topped with a poached egg.
Where does Kulajda come from?
Kulajda is a Czech dish from Bohemia, Czechia.
Can Kulajda be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Kulajda recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions, including several at once such as gluten-free and dairy-free together. Treat them as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.
Is Kulajda safe for people with food allergies?
Our dietary labels and substitutions are a cooking guide, not medical or allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish, but we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, always read the label on every product you use, and remember a home or commercial kitchen can cross-contaminate ingredients in ways a recipe cannot control.
How long does Kulajda take to make?
About 55 minutes total (20 minutes prep, 35 minutes cooking), serving 4.
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