MSX No.2 - 2014: Cooking with Offal - Beef Tripe
Tripe (the stomach lining of some large, usually a cud-chewing, farm animal) is one of those foods you will either learn to love, or absolutely hate. The first time I sampled honeycomb beef tripe was in a Chinese restaurant; it was steamed with ginger and scallions. I thought it was OK; but not something that registers to me as anything to hoot and holler about. It was more like that I was impressed with the fact that something that I initially thought of as being so disgusting was made to taste as well as it did. I want to veer away from the Asian method of cooking it though, and discover another way to use it.
The inspirations/reasons why:
- During my research throughout the previous mead-making project (MSX No.1), I was noting a repeated warning about over-indulging in the stuff. I was led to assume that in terms of the proportion of relative intensity of post-inebriation suffering incurred in comparison to consuming other forms of alcohol of equal volume and proof strength, mead is pretty much at the top of the list, the alcohol-fuelled equivalent to a hydrogen bomb going off in the brain. Maybe the lore about the Vikings going wild and berserk in battle wasn't so much about having no instinctual fear of death; but perhaps it was more about being so hung over after sloshing down mead from feasting that they may have found the prospect of dying in battle more preferable than dealing with the agony they experienced in their heads afterwards. So, out of curiosity, I began to investigate some preventative measures in terms of natural foods and gourmet/ethnic recipes that also served as hangover cures. The Mexican dish of menudo recurred more than once in the searches as one of those things that allegedly does just that, which is made with tripe. My own personal worst binge-drinking experience back in more foolish days involved tequila, the result being one of the most horrific hangovers to ever pollute my inter-cranial space within my lifetime so far, thus I'm not going to argue with any Mexicans about what the panacea is for over-imbibing, and I'll take their word for it. I'm not opting for menudo itself, (which I think edges toward being a little too disgusting* and preparation intensive), but I'm open to trying some other variation of this kind of organ meat.
- I've been still lacking energy since the flu hit me. Even though I haven't been drinking, it feels like I've been enduring a low-grade hang over for a long time. I'm realizing just how little protein I've been eating over the past while. Maybe a protein-rich hangover cure will also serve as a general all-purpose re-energizer as well.
- Robbie Burns' Day is coming up, and the related events have been becoming more notably popular around this town in the past few years. Maybe this late January tradition involving feasting on animal guts (haggis) was an inspiration to try to use that type of ingredient. I took it as an Iron Chef challenge, thinking that I could improve that sort of culinary abomination.
- Economy: this stuff was cheap in the meat shop I was ambling through at the time I discovered it (go figure that!) so I got courageous and picked some up.
- It's a confidence builder, and a measure of mastery of your own kitchen skills when you can take something that's so positively revolting and transform it into something delicious. It's not such a big deal to take a high quality cut of meat and make it palatable, but to take the odds and ends of a beast, and make something amazing out of it is an act of working miracles. It's the equivalent of digging in a pile of shit and finding diamonds. It expands options and brings one to having the mindset of trying to find abundance in the least of things.
- Let's not delude ourselves: it's no more disgusting of an ingredient than what you are already likely to find in the average hotdog/sausage.
After researching and deconstructing several other recipes and cooking techniques, being mindful to strictly limit things and use stuff I already had in the kitchen, I came up with my own hybrid recipe and process, which then . . . holy crap** . . . I actually started to record in word and visuals. Here is my version of Trippa alla Romana***. My apologies to any Italian chefs out there who may regard this recipe of mine as a little too unorthodox from what is traditional and authentic.
Trippa alla Romana
Step 1: Take
1 kg of beef tripe, place it in a bowl, add
2 teaspoon of salt and cover it with water. Let it soak for a half hour. Wash and rinse it, and cover it again let it soak for another half hour.
Step 2: Wash, rinse and drain thoroughly, and then place in a cooking vessel which allows you to add enough water to cover the tripe. Add
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract****. Bring it to a boil, and then lower the heat and allow it to simmer for an hour. Reserve
1 cup of the braising fluid, and drain away the rest of the liquid and allow it to cool down.
Step 3: In the meanwhile, set up your
mise en place, which include the following ingredients:
- 2 tablespoons of olive oil
- 1 1/2 cup - chopped onion
- 1 1/2 cup - finely chopped celery
- 4 - large cloves of garlic, chopped
- 1/2 tsp - coarsely ground black pepper
- 1/2 tsp - salt
- 1/2 tsp - dried parsley
- 1 cup - carrots, finely chopped
- 1 cup - yellow pepper, finely chopped
- 2 cup - canned diced tomatoes
- 3/4 cup - dry white wine
- 3-5 grams (about a 1/4 cup packed) of fresh mint leaves, chopped
Step 4: Cut the cooled tripe into smaller pieces, about 3 cm (about 1.5 inches) square.
Step 5: In a saucepan with medium heat, heat the
2 tablespoons of olive oil, and then add the
onions,
celery, and fry until the onions are translucent, add the
garlic, black pepper, salt, and
parsley and fry until the garlic begins to caramelize (do not burn or blacken it).
Step 6: In a slow-cooker crock (about 4 litre capacity), add in the
reserved braising fluid, dry white wine, canned diced tomatoes, the tripe, and then the sautéed onion/celery/garlic mixture, add and mix in the chopped mint leaves. Mix all together and set on high and allow to cook for at least six hours.
Verdict: I was a bit concerned as to how the play of flavours would have worked between the having mint mixed in with tomato, onion, and garlic, but I was pleasantly surprised. I think a blend of a sweeter variety of tomatoes and red onion would have been more suitable though. My first sampling of the tripe itself was still a bit tough and rubbery, if you don't mind the texture of calamari it would be tolerable. I let it slow cook for another few hours to see if it gets more tenderized, and seeing if a better merging of the carrots and celery flavours happen in the mix. I sampled it after two more hours, and there was much improvement in both flavour and texture. It's even slightly better than last time I had tripe, but it's still not enough to stick me in enough of a mood to add it to a list of my favourite things to eat. I'm satisfied though that I made it into something that was better than what my expectations of what it might be were. Better than haggis at least I think.
*- Besides, I don't know where I could find some spare animal hooves to add to the mixture, an ingredient of to one menudo recipe I saw.
**- People who know me will find this shocking, because never use set recipes for anything when I create stuff in the kitchen.
***- Isn't Italian a beautiful language? I like the way it rolls off the tongue. This name makes it so much more appealing and appetizing than Roman Style Cow Gut Stew.
****- This is not really for flavouring the meat; it's more for taming down the initial steaming stench that comes off boiling offal. Do your neighbours, and co-habiting housemates a favour: if you have an overhead exhaust fan, please use it to the max.
