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Tripe and Onions

Tripe simmered with onions, thickened with flour and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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. Scrape and clean the tripe, then cut it into squares.

  2. Place the tripe in a saucepan with the onions and enough cold water to cover it.

  3. Simmer for two hours.

  4. Remove the onions, chop them, and set aside.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Mix the flour with the skim milk and the cooking liquid.

  2. Pour the mixture into the saucepan with the tripe, add the chopped onions, and stir until it boils.

  3. Boil for another five minutes and serve, seasoning with pepper and salt to taste.

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. Flour + milktop 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).

Flour and milk 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 main body of the dish and becomes tender during long, slow simmering.
Flour
Thickens the milk and cooking liquid into a smooth sauce as it heats.
Skim milk
Adds creaminess and body to the sauce, making it smoother and milder.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they soften and mellow in the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour mixture into the boiling tripe. Flour must be fully dispersed before heating or it clumps. Stirring while the liquid heats lets starch granules separate and swell evenly, giving a smooth, thickened sauce rather than lumps.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, 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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