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Chitterlings or Calf's Tripe

A stew of chitterlings or calf's tripe with onions, butter, cream, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Eliza Leslie · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Chitterlings or Calf's Tripe

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chitterlings

  1. See that the chitterlings are very nice and white.

  2. Wash them and cut them into pieces.

  3. Put them into a stew-pan with pepper and salt to your taste, and about two quarts of water.

  4. Boil them two hours or more.

Make the onion sauce

  1. Peel eight or ten white onions and throw them whole into a sauce-pan with plenty of water.

  2. Boil them slowly till quite soft, then drain them in a cullender and mash them.

  3. Wipe out your sauce-pan.

  4. Put in the mashed onions with a piece of butter, two table-spoonfuls of cream or rich milk, some nutmeg, and a very little salt.

  5. Sprinkle in a little flour.

  6. Set the pan on hot coals (keeping it well covered) and give it one boil up.

Serve

  1. Take the chitterlings up and drain them.

  2. Place in the bottom of a dish a slice or two of buttered toast with all the crust cut off, then lay the chitterlings on the toast.

  3. Send them to table with the stewed onions in a sauce-boat.

  4. Take the chitterlings on your plate and season them with pepper and vinegar.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

197Calories
2 gProtein
17 gFat
10 gCarbs

Counts 3 of 4 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 3 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Eliza Leslie. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures. See the original page.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Onion + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,827 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

Onion and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,827 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Chitterlings (in the method)
Main protein; long simmering makes them tender enough to eat.
White onions
Cooked soft and mashed, they form the body and sweetness of the sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the onion sauce.
Flour (in the method)
Lightly thickens the mashed onion sauce so it holds together.
Butter
Adds fat and rich flavor to the onion sauce.

The step that matters

Boiling the onions until quite soft. Onions must be fully softened before mashing; firm pieces stay grainy and won't form a smooth sauce. Cooking them slowly also draws out their sweetness.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, cream):

  1. Potatofits about as well
  2. Onionthe original
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Chivefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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