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To Boil Tripe

A stew of boiled tripe simmered in milk with onions, white pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,418 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

To Boil Tripe

Ingredients

Directions

Clean and simmer the tripe

  1. Soak the tripe in cold water overnight.

  2. Place the tripe in a saucepan with fresh cold water over high heat.

  3. Once the water boils, drain it.

  4. Cover with fresh cold water again.

  5. Repeat the previous steps until the water boils clear and the smell dissipates.

  6. Reduce heat and simmer for 5 to 6 hours, keeping the pan covered.

  7. Add salt to taste.

Make the stew

  1. Cut the tripe into small pieces.

  2. Place the tripe pieces in a saucepan.

  3. Pour 1½ pints of milk over the tripe.

  4. Stew over low heat for at least 30 minutes.

Add the onions and serve

  1. Boil the onions in water for 30 minutes.

  2. Chop the onions finely.

  3. Stir the chopped onions into the saucepan with the tripe.

  4. Season with 1 teaspoon of white pepper.

  5. Serve immediately.

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. Milk + oniontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  2. Onion + white peppertop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  3. Milk + white peppertop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,304 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Tripe
Forms the main body of the stew and becomes tender through long, slow simmering.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the flavour of the stew during gentle cooking.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury aroma as they soften in the stew.

The step that matters

Repeat the boil and drain until the water runs clear. Tripe carries residues and strong odours. Repeated boiling and draining removes much of this, so skipping it leaves an off-flavour and smell in the finished stew.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, onion):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, onion. 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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