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To Souse Tripe, Etc

A method of soaking tripe, pig's ears, or lamb's tongues in a vinegar and water brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,400 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

To Souse Tripe, Etc

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the brine

  1. Boil 4 quarts of water and 2 quarts of vinegar. Remove all the scum as it rises.

  2. Allow the mixture to cool.

Soak and store

  1. Place the tripe, pig's ears, or lamb's tongues in a keg.

  2. Pour the cooled vinegar and water over the meat. Add 1 tablespoon of cloves and 3 blades of mace.

  3. Seal the keg air-tight.

Serve

  1. Serve cold or fry in batter or crumbs.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

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. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Vinegar + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mace + lambtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together208 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Clove + lambtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together567 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Vinegar + macetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,415 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Vinegar
Acidity that preserves and sharpens the flavour of the soaking liquid and meat.
Tripe
Main meat that is softened and flavoured by the soaking liquid.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, clove, lamb):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, clove, lamb. 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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