From a Polish Country House Kitchen #8

Cooking my way through From a Polish Country House Kitchen

This week’s recipe also included our homemade pickles.  For the first time in cooking from this book, I have to say, I won’t make this again – at least not as it’s written.  Adding the pickles was fine, just a variation on Beef Stroganoff really.  It’s with the cut of meat used that I must take issue.  I could have produced something with the same taste at a fraction of the cost and in half the time.

Beef Tenderloin with Wild Mushrooms and Dill Pickle – I must disagree with the authors’ choice for the recipe and question how much vodka was consumed in the development.  They take beef tenderloin and after cutting it into steaks, pound the hell out of it.  I followed the recipe, which gave me a great deal of turmoil.  They say that, “tenderloin can be bland and is too often served with an only slightly less bland wine sauce.”  I’ve never found fault with a filet seasoned with  salt and a little garlic.  This, while producing a tasty dish, was a waste of a fine cut of meat and could be better prepared with round steak or even the Polish mystery cut of “rostbef.”  There seem to be three uses of beef in Poland – the tenderloin, ground beef, and rostbef which seems to account for everything in between.

There won’t be a post next Monday.  It’s not because of this dish; we’re traveling for the next week and I won’t have a chance to cook anything.

Like bake-alongs I’ve done in the past, I’m not posting the recipes in From a Polish Country House Kitchen, but if you’d like your own copy, it’s available on Amazon.

Lois Britton

An accountant by trade and a food blogger since 2009, Lois Britton fell in love with Polish cuisine during the years she lived in Poznań, Poland. As the creator of PolishHousewife.com,  she loves connecting readers with traditional Polish recipes. Lois has a graduate certificate in Food Writing and Photography from the University of South Florida. She is the author of The Polish Housewife Cookbook, available on Amazon and on her website.