Dillsoße

Dillsoße sits strongest on the northern and eastern table, where fish, potatoes, cucumber, and dill know each other already. It belongs to spring when the first asparagus and new potatoes arrive, to Good Friday fish, and to a weeknight plate of boiled eggs or poached cod when you want a proper sauce without making a Sunday project of it.

Im Norden anders, im Süden anders. In Mecklenburg and the old Prussian kitchens, I make it light and sharp, stock first, a little vinegar or lemon, and enough dill to smell it before the plate lands. Farther south, the sauce often turns creamier and softer, sometimes served with boiled beef or vegetables, but dill is never the big southern herb the way parsley and chives are. Das ist kein Bierzelt. It is a quiet sauce, pale gold with green through it.

The technique is simple and unforgiving: cook the blond roux long enough to lose the raw flour taste, then loosen it slowly with warm stock. Cold liquid dumped in fast gives you lumps because the starch sets before it can spread. The dill goes in at the end, off the hard boil, because boiling fresh dill turns it dull and grassy. Erst verstehen, dann kochen.

Use good stock. Nicht aus dem Glas. Fish stock for fish, vegetable stock for asparagus, light chicken stock for eggs and potatoes. Weggeworfen wird nichts, the fish bones or vegetable trimmings make the liquid that makes the sauce.