Home › The World's Kitchen › Broiled Devilled Tripe
Broiled Devilled Tripe
Procure two pounds fresh honeycomb tripe and cut it in six equal pieces. Place them in saucepan with a finely sliced onion, sprig thyme, bay leaf, two cloves, a half gill vinegar, teaspoon salt, half teaspoon pepper, quart water, cover pan and let slowly boil for fifteen minutes. Remove to a table and let cool in seasoning, lift up tripe and thoroughly drain on a cloth. Spread devilled butter on both sides of tripe, roll in bread crumbs, broil over a brisk fire for three minutes on each side, remove, dress on a hot dish and serve.
A straightforward two-stage dish: tripe is simmered in an aromatic court-bouillon, then crumbed and grilled. The only real obstacle is the cooking time, which assumes a butcher's tripe rather than what a supermarket sells.
- Fifteen minutes is not enoughThe instruction assumes tripe already dressed and part-cooked by the butcher, which was standard when this was written. Tripe sold today, even labelled "bleached" or "scalded", generally needs 1½ to 2 hours at a bare simmer before it is tender enough to eat. Test with a knife tip: it should yield with no rubbery resistance.
- "Slowly boil"Means a gentle simmer with the surface barely moving. A hard boil toughens tripe and clouds the liquid.
- Half a gill of vinegarA gill is a quarter-pint, half a cup, so half a gill is about 2 fl oz: 4 tablespoons, or a quarter cup (a shade more if reckoned by the imperial pint). Plain white or cider vinegar; it is there to soften and freshen, not to flavour heavily.
- Devilled butterThe book assumes you know it: butter creamed with Dijon or English mustard, cayenne, a little Worcestershire and salt. Roughly 4 tablespoons butter to 1 tablespoon mustard and a good pinch of cayenne will coat two pounds of tripe.
- Cool in the seasoningThis is the step most likely to be skipped and the one that carries the flavour. Letting the tripe cool in its liquid also firms it, so it takes the butter and crumbs without tearing.
- Dry it properlyTripe holds water in the honeycomb. Press it between cloths or paper towels until the surface is matte, or the crumbs slide off under the grill.
- "Broil over a brisk fire"A hot grill or a broiler set high, with the tripe about 4 inches from the element. Three minutes a side is right here — the tripe is already cooked and you only want the crumbs browned and the butter melted through.
- YieldSix pieces from two pounds; serves three as a main course or six as a savoury course.
Tripe was cheap protein across most of Europe, treated as a matter of course rather than as a curiosity. The "devilled" treatment — mustard, cayenne, hot butter, crumbs, fierce heat — is an English habit of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, applied to kidneys, bones, biscuits, chicken legs and anything else that could take a hot seasoning, and it was standard breakfast and supper fare in clubs and chophouses. Honeycomb tripe, the second stomach of the ox, was preferred for grilling precisely because its texture traps butter and holds crumbs. The two-stage method here — long aromatic simmer, then a quick browning — is one of several French approaches to tripe as well, and reflects the fact that a cook once bought tripe already cleaned and part-boiled from the tripe dresser, a trade that has largely disappeared.