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Stewed Tripe

A stew of tripe, onion, and milk thickened with flour, seasoned with pepper and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Stewed Tripe

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tripe

  1. Blanch the tripe in cold water and bring to a boil.

  2. Strain away the water, remove all fat, and cut the tripe into neat square pieces.

Simmer

  1. In a saucepan, combine the tripe, chopped onion, and milk. Season with pepper and salt.

  2. Bring to a boil, then simmer gently for two hours.

  3. Blend the flour smoothly with a little cold milk, then strain it into the saucepan.

  4. Stir until it boils up, then serve very hot.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + milktop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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
Forms the body of the stew and becomes tender during long gentle simmering.
Milk
Provides the liquid for the stew and gives it a mild, creamy richness.
Flour
Thickens the milky liquid as it heats, giving the stew a smoother body.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aroma as it softens in the simmering liquid.

The step that matters

Blend the flour smoothly before adding it. Flour clumps if added directly to hot liquid, because its starch grains swell unevenly. Mixing it first with a little cold milk separates the grains so the stew thickens evenly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, 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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