The taste for tripe is an acquired one. Many national cuisines have traditional tripe dishes, including the French, Chinese, Portuguese, and Mexican cuisines – to name only a few. The tripe dish shown in the photo below was prepared following a simple recipe. Click on the photo to enlarge it.
Here is the recipe:
- Cut up about 2 lbs of tripe into rectangular strips. I suggest rectangles of about 5 by 1 inches.
- Boil the tripe strips in low heat for 5 hours.
- Drain the boiled tripe strips, and place them in a frying or sauce pan. You may use the same pan you used for boiling.
- Add a small amount of tomato sauce, enough to give the tripe strips color, but not to completely immerse them in the sauce. Add seasoning to taste. I suggest some salt, parsley, garlic powder, chili powder, black pepper, and cayenne pepper.
- Cook the tripe strips in tomato sauce for about 15 minutes.
Cooked tripe has a strong, characteristic smell, which will fill your kitchen as you boil it for 5 hours. Not many people will be able to eat many tripe strips at once, so perhaps this should not be the main dish of a dinner with friends. I personally can only eat about 5 strips at a time. I know folks who can eat a whole pan full of tripe strips, like the one shown on the photo in this post. But these folks are not many.
In terms of nutrition, 100 g of tripe prepared in this way will have approximately 12 g of protein, 4 g of fat, 157 g of cholesterol, and 2 g of carbohydrates. You will also be getting a reasonable amount of vitamin B12, zinc, and selenium.