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Broiled Tripe with Tartar Sauce
Put two pounds of tripe cut up into large squares into a basin, sprinkle them with salt, pepper, or cayenne, add two tablespoonfuls of minced onion and a small quantity of chopped parsley, pour over some oil, and allow the whole to remain for an hour. Take them out singly, roll them in oil, cover with breadcrumbs, put them on a gridiron over a bright fire, and broil them for twenty minutes or so. When done, put them on a dish, and serve with tartar sauce, either poured around or served in a sauceboat. Tripe, Creole Style Cut one and one-half pounds of tripe into small pieces, fry them in a pan with two ounces of butter, one chopped onion, and half of a green pepper, also chopped. Brown them slightly for six minutes, then transfer them to a saucepan with one chopped tomato and one-half pint of Spanish sauce, and season with one pinch of salt and half a pinch of pepper, adding a garnished bouquet, also a crushed clove of garlic. Cook for ten minutes, and serve with one teaspoonful of chopped parsley sprinkled over.
Two recipes run together here: a breaded broiled tripe and a Creole braise. Both assume the kitchen is starting with tripe that has already been cleaned and boiled tender, which is the single thing the text does not say.
- Tripe must be cooked before it is broiledTwenty minutes on a gridiron will not tenderise raw tripe; it will only scorch it. Even tripe sold today as "cleaned" or "bleached" needs one and a half to three hours at a bare simmer, until a knife goes through easily, before it is cut into squares and marinated. Tripe of this period was generally sold dressed and at least partly boiled, which would explain the omission.
- Which tripeHoneycomb (the second stomach) is the usual choice and holds the oil and crumbs best. Blanket or plain tripe is flatter and blander. Buy it from a butcher rather than assuming a supermarket will have it.
- Gridiron over a bright fireA hot charcoal, coal or wood fire. A gas grill at high heat or an oven broiler with the rack close to the element does the same job. Once the tripe is already tender you are only crisping the crumb, which takes eight to ten minutes with one turn, not twenty.
- The oil marinade"Pour over some oil" means enough to coat the pieces; the book gives no quantity. Olive oil is a plausible choice. The hour of resting is worth keeping; it seasons the tripe, which is otherwise very bland.
- Tartar saucePeriod tartar sauce is homemade mayonnaise with chopped capers, gherkins, shallot and parsley, sharpened with a little vinegar or mustard. Commercial jarred tartar sauce is much sweeter and will fight the tripe.
- Spanish sauceIn this book that means sauce espagnole, the brown mother sauce built on browned mirepoix, tomato and brown stock. Half a pint is one cup. A good reduced beef or veal stock, thickened lightly, stands in for it.
- Garnished bouquetA bouquet garni: parsley stems, thyme and a bay leaf tied together, or wrapped in a leek leaf. Fish it out before serving.
- The Creole timingTen minutes in the sauce is a finishing simmer, not a cooking time. It works only because the tripe went into the pan already tender.
- YieldTwo pounds of tripe broiled serves four as a main course; the Creole version, at a pound and a half, serves three to four.
Tripe was cheap protein that appeared on grand hotel menus, not in spite of its humbleness. Oscar Tschirky, the Swiss-born ma tre d'h tel of the Waldorf, compiled this book in 1896 from the working repertoire of a French-trained brigade, and offal dishes sit in it alongside terrapin and canvasback duck without apology. The breading-and-grilling treatment here is close to the classic French tripes à la mode de Caen family only in raw material; the crumbed, mustard-or-tartar-sauced version is nearer to English and Lyonnais practice, where boiled tripe was also finished on a gridiron. The Creole variant with green pepper, tomato, garlic and brown sauce reflects New Orleans cooking, which shows up repeatedly in American cookbooks of the 1890s under the blanket label "Creole style."