🇨🇿 Czechia · South Bohemia
KulajdaCzech creamy mushroom soup
A thick white South Bohemian soup of potatoes, cream or sour cream and mushrooms, soured with a little vinegar, with fresh dill and a poached or boiled egg.
Origin and history
Kulajda is a thick white soup from South Bohemia, recorded there in the 19th century; it spread through the Czech lands in the second half of that century and in the 1970s entered the standard recipe books of Czech public catering. Its name is usually explained by the old way of thickening it with flour stirred into milk or water. The story that a Šumava cook named Adelheid Kuhová invented it is a later romantic tale, and early recipes had no mushrooms, which are now considered essential.
Make it at home
- Makes
- 4-6 servings
- Total time
- 1 h
- Hands-on
- 30 min
Ingredients
- 20 g0.7 oz (a large handful) dried wild mushrooms (houby), ideally ceps, or 250 g (9 oz) fresh forest mushrooms, sliced
- 250 ml1 cup hot water, for soaking the mushrooms
- 1 l4 1/4 cups water or light vegetable stock
- 1 tsp caraway seeds (kmín), or 2 bay leaves and 3 allspice berries
- 1 tsp salt, plus more to taste
- 600 g1.3 lb potatoes, peeled, cut into 1.5 cm (1/2 in) dice
- 300 ml1 1/4 cups sour cream (zakysaná smetana) or whipping cream (31%), at room temperature
- 2 tbsp plain flour
- 1-2 tbsp white vinegar, to taste, plus a splash for poaching
- 1 tsp sugar, to taste
- 1 tbsp butter, only if using fresh mushrooms
- 25 g1 large bunch (about 1/2 cup chopped) fresh dill (kopr), soft fronds only, chopped just before use
- 4-6 eggs, one per bowl
- black pepper, to taste
Method
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1. Soak the dried mushrooms in the hot water for 15-30 minutes, until soft. If you use fresh mushrooms instead, sauté them in the butter for 3-4 minutes and set aside.
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2. Bring the water or stock to the boil in a pot with the salt and caraway. Add the potatoes and the mushrooms with their soaking liquid (leave any grit at the bottom of the bowl). Simmer for 15-20 minutes, until the potatoes are nearly tender.
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3. Whisk the flour into the sour cream until completely smooth, then whisk in a ladle of the hot soup. Pour this into the pot, stirring, and simmer gently for 8-10 minutes, stirring now and then, until the soup has thickened and no longer tastes of raw flour.
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4. Take the pot off the heat. Season with vinegar and sugar, a little at a time, until the soup is gently sweet-sour, then with pepper and more salt if needed. Keep it warm, but do not boil it again.
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5. Poach the eggs: bring a wide pan of water to a bare simmer with a splash of vinegar, slide in the eggs one at a time and cook for about 3 minutes, until the whites are set and the yolks still runny. Lift them out with a slotted spoon.
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6. Stir the chopped dill into the soup just before serving.
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7. Ladle the soup into deep plates and set a poached egg in each one. Serve with bread, or on its own as a light main course.
Notes
- The egg: a soft poached (zastřené) egg with a runny yolk is the usual garnish; pubs often serve halved hard-boiled eggs, restaurants sometimes quail eggs, and some home cooks stir a beaten egg into the simmering soup instead.
- Sweet-sour balance is the heart of kulajda and every family sets it differently. Add vinegar and sugar gradually and taste; sour cream already brings some acidity, so you may need less vinegar than with sweet cream.
- Dill: use plenty of fresh green dill, added only at the end; long cooking dulls its colour and flavour. Dill preserved in vinegar is a poor substitute.
- Mushrooms: in summer and autumn cooks use fresh ceps, chanterelles or other forest mushrooms; in winter, dried ones. Some recipes add a little milk with the cream, or a finely chopped onion with the potatoes.
- Caraway is the old-style seasoning; bay leaf and allspice are a common modern alternative.
- Kulajda is meatless. It is often confused with kyselo, a sour mushroom soup from the Giant Mountains soured with rye sourdough rather than cream.
- Best eaten freshly made. It keeps 2 days in the fridge; reheat gently without boiling and add fresh dill and eggs when serving.
Adapted from Toprecepty.cz, "Jihočeská kulajda", Novinky.cz, "Recept na kulajdu" (Anita Ponešová), and Cook Like Czechs, "Kulajda (Czech mushroom soup)".
At the festivals
Served at 2 festivals in Czechia.
Earlier editions
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October 17, 2026
🇨🇿 Prague, Czechia
Polívkování
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October 18, 2025
🇨🇿 Prague, Czechia
Soup Festival at Smíchovská Náplavka
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October 19, 2019
🇨🇿 Prague, Czechia
Podzimní Polívkování
- September 02, 2018