Fried Tripe
Tripe 1 Egg Milk 4 Tablespoons Barley Flour Salt Pork Wash in warm water, cut in three-inch squares. Make a batter of the egg, milk and flour; try out the pork. Dip tripe in the batter and fry a light brown.
A short recipe that assumes something no longer true: that tripe comes from the butcher already boiled tender. Everything else here is straightforward once that gap is filled.
- Cook the tripe firstThis is the hinge. Tripe in this period was often sold already dressed and boiled, and frying was largely a way of browning it — though plenty of period recipes still direct hours of boiling at home. Tripe bought today is cleaned and bleached but still tough, and needs roughly 1½ to 3 hours at a bare simmer with salt and an onion until a knife slips through easily. Cool and pat it dry before battering, or the coating will slide off.
- Which tripeHoneycomb tripe (the second stomach) suits this well: it holds batter. The recipe gives no quantity; about 1½ lb will serve four.
- The batter is unmeasuredOnly the flour and egg are quantified; the milk has no amount. For 4 tablespoons barley flour and 1 egg, start with about 1/4 cup milk and add more until the batter coats a spoon thickly. Barley flour gives a soft, pale crust; all-purpose flour fries crisper if you prefer that.
- "Try out the pork"Dice a few ounces of salt pork and cook it slowly in the pan until the fat has rendered out and the scraps are golden. Lift out the cracklings and fry the tripe in the fat — you want about 1/4 inch in the pan. Any neutral fat works if salt pork is not to hand, though you lose the cured flavour that carries the dish.
- Heat and timingMedium-high, roughly 350–375F fat. The tripe is already cooked, so it needs only 2 to 3 minutes a side to set the batter and colour it. Longer just makes it rubbery.
- SaltThe list reads "Salt Pork", which is probably one ingredient rather than salt and pork separately; either way no amount of salt is given, and the pork fat is already salty. Season the batter lightly and taste before adding more at the table.
- ServingTraditionally sent to the table hot with vinegar, mustard, or a squeeze of lemon, and boiled or fried potatoes alongside. Drain on paper and serve at once; the batter softens quickly.
Tripe was cheap and filling, and it was often sold ready-boiled, which could make it one of the fastest meats in the kitchen. Fried tripe in batter was standard in English, Scottish and American households through the nineteenth century, and cooks paired it with salt pork, the all-purpose frying fat of the American larder before commercial shortening. The barley flour is the one unusual note: it produces a tender rather than crisp coating. Recipes this bare assumed the reader could buy prepared tripe at market and needed only to be told what to do in the last ten minutes — the reason the instructions skip the hours of simmering a modern cook cannot skip.