Sauces · Czech cuisine
Dill sauce
Czech koprová omáčka: a sweet-and-sour sauce of pale roux, stock, dill and cream with egg yolk.
At a glance
- Origin
- Czech bourgeois cooking, documented by the mid-19th century at the latest.
- Production
- Pale roux with stock, dill, sugar and vinegar, finished with cream and yolk.
- Pairs with
- Boiled beef, hard-boiled eggs, potatoes or dumplings.
- Use
- The cream version is made with milk instead of stock.
Dill sauce (koprová omáčka, colloquially koprovka) is a Czech white sauce of pale roux thinned with stock, into which chopped dill, sugar, salt and vinegar are stirred, finished with cream and a beaten egg yolk. Its hallmark is a balanced sweet-and-sour taste.
Rettigová gives it in the 1849 German edition of her cookbook as Dillensoß: dill is simmered in beef stock with a little vinegar and bound with butter, flour, egg yolk and sour cream; it was served with boiled beef. She also has a brown version with dark roux. In 1947 Janků-Sandtnerová describes a pale roux with stock and dill, seasoned with sugar, salt and vinegar and enriched with yolk in cream, plus a cream version made with milk.
The dill goes into the simmered base, the yolk and cream just before serving. The final taste is balanced with sugar and vinegar. It is also made more simply from milk or cream thickened with roux, without stock or egg yolk.