Once utopenec was considered a delicacy, nowadays it has become an integral part of the menu of almost every restaurant with Czech cuisine
As Radio Prague notes, many people also marinate sausages at home, and it can be confidently stated that every family has its own original method of preparation.
"Utopenci" is a dish loved by many Czechs. This is evidenced by dozens of recipes published on the internet. Some ingredients and spices vary slightly, but the basics remain unchanged – quality sausages and onions. Some add hot peppers, cucumbers, cabbage, and there is also a recipe for quick "utopenci" – with a shorter pickling time.
The inventor of "utopenci" is presumably the miller and owner of a beer restaurant, Mr. Šamanek from Beroun. They say he was thinking about how to keep sausages fresh without a refrigerator so that guests could enjoy them even a month after production without the risk of poisoning. Hence the idea of marinating them came about.
And the name (again, according to legend) originated because Mr. Šamanek himself drowned while trying to repair the mill wheel. But perhaps it is because the sausages are "drowned" in brine. Be that as it may, Czechs have been happily eating them with a mug of cold beer for over a hundred years.
The main ingredients for preparing "utopenci": sausages, onions, pickles or gherkins, sweet peppers. For the brine you will need: 400 ml vinegar, 400 ml water, 3 teaspoons sugar, 1 teaspoon salt, 5-7 allspice berries, 12 black peppercorns, and 4 bay leaves.