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Tripe, Grilled
Clean the tripe, simmer it very gently in nicely-flavoured stock, and boil with it an onion stuck with two cloves, a carrot, a bunch of sweet herbs, and a little pepper and salt. When it is quite tender take it up, drain it, and cut it into pieces two inches square. Take equal quantities of minced parsley and chives, add a little pepper and salt, and make the mixture into a paste with a little oiled butter or dripping and lemon-juice. Dip the pieces of tripe into this batter, cover them with bread-crumbs, and broil over a clear fire. Send piquant sauce to table with them. Time to broil, till lightly browned. Probable cost, 8d. per pound. Sufficient, one pound of tripe for two or three persons.
A two-stage dish: a long gentle simmer to make the tripe tender, then a brief grilling to crisp the crumbs. The book gives no time for the first stage, which is where the whole thing is won or lost.
- The simmer is the hingeTripe is collagen; it needs long, low, moist heat and nothing else will substitute. Dressed (par-boiled) honeycomb tripe from a butcher still wants 1½ to 3 hours at a bare tremble until it yields easily to a knife point. The grilling that follows is only browning.
- "Clean the tripe"In the nineteenth century tripe was often sold less fully prepared than it is now, and could need scrubbing and blanching before use. Anything you buy today is already dressed and bleached; rinse it well and trim off ragged fat, and skip the blanching.
- Oiled butterButter melted until it runs clear as oil; clarified butter is the nearest modern equivalent. About 2 tablespoons, plus a squeeze of lemon, will bind roughly ½ cup total of chopped parsley and chives into a spreadable paste.
- Broil means grillVictorian broiling was over coals. Use an overhead broiler on high, a stovetop grill pan, or a barbecue: 3 to 4 minutes a side, just until the crumbs colour. The tripe is already cooked, and longer only dries it.
- Get it dry firstDrain the boiled pieces and blot them thoroughly. Wet tripe is slippery and the herb paste and crumbs slide off in the heat.
- Piquant sauceThe recipe does not give it here: shallots sweated in butter, deglazed with vinegar and white wine, moistened with the cooking stock, reduced, then finished with chopped gherkins and capers. It is doing the work of cutting the richness, so do not leave it out.
- Costs and yield8d. per pound is a period price and no guide to anything now. One pound serves two to three as stated, which is generous for a first course and modest for a main.
- Save the stockThe aromatic broth from the simmering is well flavoured and gelatinous. Strain it, use some for the sauce, and freeze the rest.
Tripe was cheap protein in nineteenth-century Britain, sold ready-dressed from specialist tripe shops in the northern industrial towns and eaten in vast quantity in Lancashire and Yorkshire. This recipe belongs to a different tradition: the herb-and-crumb coating, the grill over a clear fire and the accompanying sauce piquante are the French treatment. The long list of aromatics for the first boiling — clove-stuck onion, carrot, bunch of sweet herbs — is simply the standard aromatic broth of the period.