Flaki
Polish beef tripe soup in a rich, paprika-warmed broth, thickened with a light butter-and-flour roux and lifted with ginger, nutmeg and marjoram.
About this dish
Flaki's reputation as a hangover cure in Poland isn't marketing — it's a genuinely old, hearty peasant dish built to stretch an inexpensive cut of offal into a warming meal, and its spicing is unusual for the region precisely because tripe on its own has very little flavour of its own to work with. Ginger and nutmeg arrived in Polish kitchens through trade routes that most other domestic dishes never touched, and they stayed in flaki specifically because a bland, chewy cut needed something assertive enough to actually taste like something.
- Not vegetarian because of Beef tripe, Beef stock
- Contains gluten because of Plain flour
- Contains dairy because of Unsalted butter
Ingredients
- 600gBeef tripe
- 1200mlBeef stock
- 2leavesBay leaves
- 150gCarrot
- 100gCelery stalks
- 100gLeek
- 100gOnion
- 3clovesGarlic cloves
- 4gDried marjoram
- 3gFresh ginger
- 2gNutmeg
- 4gSweet smoked paprika
- 30gUnsalted butter
- 20gPlain flour
- 8gFine sea salt
- 2gGround black pepper
Instructions
Simmer the pre-cooked, sliced tripe in the beef stock with the bay leaf for about 90 minutes, until fully tender.
90 minTip: Buy tripe that has already been cleaned and partially boiled, which is how it's usually sold — raw tripe needs several hours of preliminary cooking before it's edible at all, and skipping that step is not a shortcut worth taking.
Meanwhile, finely dice the carrot, celery, leek, onion and garlic, and sauté them until softened.
10 minTip: Cut the vegetables small and uniform — in flaki they're meant to almost dissolve into the broth, not stay as identifiable chunks the way they would in a chunkier soup.
Add the softened vegetables to the pot along with the marjoram, ginger, nutmeg and paprika, and simmer together for 20 minutes.
20 minTip: Ginger and nutmeg are the two spices that make flaki taste like flaki rather than a generic vegetable-beef soup — go easy on the nutmeg specifically, since a little too much turns bitter fast.
Melt the butter in a small pan, whisk in the flour to make a light roux, and stir it into the soup to thicken.
10 minTip: Cook the roux for a minute before it meets the soup, just until it smells faintly toasted — an underdone roux leaves a raw, floury taste that no amount of simmering afterward fully cooks out.
Season with salt and pepper, and simmer for a final few minutes before serving hot.
5 minTip: Taste and adjust the salt only at the very end — the tripe and the long-simmered stock both carry their own saltiness, and seasoning early tends to overshoot it.