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Tripe and Onions

Tripe and onions is a stew of tripe simmered in milk with onions, flour, sugar, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tripe and Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tripe

  1. Cut the tripe into pieces about 3 inches by 2 inches, trim off the fat, wash well in cold water, and dry on a clean cloth.

  2. Blanch the tripe in boiling water for 5 to 10 minutes.

Simmer and finish

  1. In a stewpan, add the milk and the tripe, then simmer gently for 2 to 3 hours, stirring frequently.

  2. Boil the onions until done, chop them, and add to the tripe.

  3. Season with salt, pepper, and pounded loaf sugar.

  4. Stir in the flour to thicken the milk 15 minutes before serving.

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

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

  2. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Tripe
Provides the main chewy, tender body of the dish after long, gentle simmering.
Milk
Forms the creamy cooking liquid that the tripe and onions simmer in.
Onions
Add sweetness and savory flavor as they soften into the dish.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth, lightly bodied sauce.
Pounded loaf sugar
Adds a touch of sweetness that balances the savory tripe and onions.

The step that matters

Simmering the tripe gently. Tripe is tough and needs long, low heat to become tender. A hard boil can toughen the meat and scorch the milk, which may curdle or stick to the pan, so the heat should stay gentle and the pot stirred often.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, sugar, pepper. 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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