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Tripe

Tripe stew made with soaked tripe, water, onions, condensed milk, pepper, salt, nutmeg, and thickened with cornflour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Tripe

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tripe

  1. Soak the tripe in cold water for twelve hours, changing the water frequently.

  2. Put the soaked tripe in a saucepan with cold water and bring to a boil.

  3. Simmer for half an hour, then pour off the water.

Make the stew

  1. Add fresh water to cover the tripe and add onions if desired.

  2. Stir in condensed milk, season with pepper, coarse sea salt, and nutmeg.

  3. Thicken the mixture with a little cornflour.

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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,371 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Condensed milk + nutmegtop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together92 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Onion + condensed milktop 37% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together22 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Tripe
Forms the body of the stew as the main protein, becoming tender with long soaking and simmering.
Condensed milk
Adds sweetness and creamy richness to the broth.
Cornflour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth, saucy consistency as it heats.

The step that matters

Thicken the mixture with a little cornflour. Cornflour must be stirred into liquid and brought to a simmer to gelatinise its starch. Adding it dry or in clumps leaves lumps or a floury taste, and too much makes the stew gluey.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (condensed milk, pepper, nutmeg):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against condensed milk, pepper, nutmeg. 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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