Flaki or (diminutive) flaczki is a Polish soup-like dish made with beef tripe. Some people would not try it just because of the main ingredient, and they cannot imagine eating it. Others love it.
Recipe
Ingredients
| 2 lb | Beef tripe. Preferably, it should be already washed, precooked, and cut into short narrow stripes1. |
| 3 l | Broth: you can make your own, or use one from the carton, or use bullion cubes, or other concentrate. |
| 3 tbsp | Olive oil |
| 4 tbsp | Butter |
| 1 | Large carrot, cut into short julienne pieces (For hints on this see Note below ingredients in the Calamari a la Flaczki recipe) |
| 1 | Large onion chopped |
| 1 | About 10 cm-long white portion of a leak, cut in half then thinly sliced |
| 1 | Celery stick, thinly sliced, or equivalent amount of celery root, julienned |
| 2 – 4 tbsp | Marjoram leaves |
| 1 tsp | Hot Hungarian paprika, or more |
| 1-2 tbsp | Sweet Hungarian paprika, or more |
- In Toronto Canada area, you can buy beef tripe in stores selling Polish or Italian food. Italian stores usually sell them well washed and precooked, and often sliced into short narrow strips. These need to be only briefly boiled before they are put into the soup. If the tripe you can get is not well cleaned, you may need to use coarse salt to abrade them, removing extraneous fat and any dirt. ↩︎
Directions
- Place the beef tripe strips in a bowl, add plenty of cool water and some salt and mix to dislodge any residual pieces of fat; pick them up and discard.
- Repeat the process at least one more time.
- Place the washed tripes in a pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil, add a table spoon of salt, and continue boiling for about 10 minutes.
- Drain the boiled tripes on a colander.
- You can repeat steps 3 and 4, one or two more times, to remove more of the tripe specific aroma, but if you do it too much the resulting dish will be more bland.
- Melt butter in a frying pan, with addition of olive oil
- Add onions and saute until translucent
- Add carrots and saute for 2 – 3 minites
- Add chopped leaks and celery sticks and continue sauteing until all vegetables are soft
- In a large pot bring broth to boil and and reduce heat to low
- Add the sauteed vegetables and spices, and simmer until the broth becomes well seasoned.
- Add the tripes to the broth and cook on medium for about 15 minutes, or until soft.
- Serve with bread or fresh rolls.