Beef tripe is usually made from the muscle wall (the interior mucosal lining is removed) of only the first three chambers of a cow's stomach: the rumen (blanket/flat/smooth tripe), the reticulum (honeycomb and pocket tripe), and the omasum (book/bible/leaf tripe). Abomasum (reed) tripe is seen much less frequently, owing to its glandular tissue content.
Other animals
Though tripe tends to refer to the cow (beef) stomach cooked as food, a similar meal item may also be produced from any animal with a stomach. In some cases, other names have been applied to the 'tripe' of other animals. For example, tripe from pigs may be referred to as paunch. Hog (pig) stomach is also eaten under the term hog maw.
Washed tripe
Washed tripe is more typically known as dressed tripe. To dress the tripe, the stomachs are cleaned and the Fat trimmed off. It is then boiled and bleached, giving it the white color more commonly associated with tripe as seen on market stalls and in butchers shops. The task of dressing the tripe is usually carried out by a professional tripe dresser.
Dressed tripe was a popular nutritious and cheap dish for the British working classes from Victorian times until the latter half of the 20th century. While still popular in many parts of the world today, the number of tripe eaters, and consequently the number of tripe dressers, in the UK has rapidly declined. Tripe has come to be regarded as a pet food, as the increased affluence of postwar Britain has reduced the appeal of this once staple food.
It remains a popular dish in many parts of continental Europe such as France and Italy. In France, a very popular dish, sold in most supermarkets, is tripes à la mode de Caen.
Dishes prepared with tripe
Tripe is eaten in many parts of the world. Tripe soup is made in many varieties in the Eastern European cuisine. Tripe dishes include:
Andouille — French poached, boiled and smoked cold tripe sausage
Andouillette — French grilling sausage including beef tripe and pork
Babat — Indonesian spicy beef tripe dish, could be fried with spices or served as soup as soto babat (tripe soto)
TQallia — Moroccan spiced, seasoned in a sauce with vegetables and served on cous-cous
Bak kut teh — A Chinese herbal soup popularly served in Malaysia & Singapore with pork tripe, meat & ribs.
Breakfast sausages — Most commercially produced sausages in the United States contain pork and beef tripe as filler
Bumbar — A Bosnian dish where the tripe is stuffed with other beef parts
Dulot or dulet — Eritrean and Ethiopian tripe and entrail stir-fry, containing finely chopped tripe, liver and ground beef, lamb or goat fried in clarified and spiced butter, with garlic, parsley and berbere
Ebyenda or byenda — word for tripe in some Bantu languages of Uganda, tripe may be stewed, but is especially popular when cooked with matooke as a breakfast dish
Fuqi feipian or 夫妻肺片— spicy and "numbing" (麻) Chinese cold dish made from various types of beef offal, nowadays mainly thinly sliced tendon, tripe and sometimes tongue
Gopchang jeongol - a spicy Korean stew or casserole made by boiling beef tripe, vegetables, and seasonings in beef broth
Goto - Filipino gruel with tripe.
Guatitas — Ecuadorian and Chilean tripe stew, often served with peanut sauce in Ecuador
Guru — Zimbabwean name for tripe, normally eaten as relish with sadza
Haggis — Scottish traditional dish made of a sheep's stomach stuffed with oatmeal and the minced heart, liver and lungs of a sheep. The stomach is used only as a vessel for the stuffing and is not eaten.
İşkembe çorbası — Turkish tripe soup with garlic, lemon, and spices
Kare-kare — Filipino oxtail-peanut stew which may include tripe
Khash — In Armenia, this popular winter soup is made of boiled beef tendon and honeycomb tripe, and served with garlic and lavash bread.
Kista — Assyrian cooked traditionally in a stew and stuffed with soft rice, part of a major dish known as pacha in Assyrian.
laray — Pakistani curried tripe dish popular in the north of the country, eaten with naan/roti
Mumbar beef or sheep tripe stuffed with rice, typical dish in Adana in southern Turkey
Niubie (Chinese: 牛瘪) A kind of Chinese huoguo, popular in the Qiandongnan prefecture of Guizhou province in southwest China and traditionally eaten by the Dong and Miao peoples, the dish includes the stomach and small intestine of cattle. Bile from the gall bladder and the half-digested contents of the stomach give the dish a unique, slightly bitter flavour. It can also be made with the offal of a goat, which is called yangbie (Chinese: 羊瘪).
Pacha — Iraqi & Assyrian cuisine, tripe and intestines stuffed with garlic rice and meat
Pancitas — Mexican stew similar to menudo, but made with sheep stomach
Pancita — Peruvian spicy barbecue fried food made with beef tripe marinated with peppers and other ingredients
Papaitan — Filipino goat or beef tripe and offal soup flavored with bile
Patsás (Greek: πατσάς) — Greek, tripe stew seasoned with red wine vinegar and garlic (skordostoubi) or thickened with avgolemono, widely believed to be a hangover remedy
Serobe — a Botswana delicacy, mixed with intestines and in some occasions with beef meat
Shkembe (shkembe chorba) (Шкембе чорба / Чкембе чорба in Macedonian) — a kind of tripe soup, prepared in Iran, Bulgaria, Romania, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Turkey, schkæm is the Persian word for stomach, sirabi is the Iranian version of shkembe
Skembici — Serbia, one of the oldest known dishes since 13th century, tripe in vegetable stew with herbs, served with boiled potato
Tripice- Croatia, stew made with Tripe, boiled with potato and bacon added for flavour.
Tripes à la mode de Caen — in Normandy, this is a traditional stew made with tripe. It has a very codified recipe, preserved by the brotherhood of "La tripière d'or" that organises a competition every year to elect the world's best tripes à la mode de Caen maker.
Tripe and beans — in Jamaica, this is a thick, spicy stew made with tripe and broad beans.
Trippa di Moncalieri — in Moncalieri city/Piedmont/Italy (tripe sausage, that could be served in thin slices with few drops of olive oil, minced parsley, garlic and a pinch of black pepper, or used mainly for trippa alla Savoiarda recipe)
Trippa alla fiorentina — in Italy (fried with tomatoes and other vegetables)
Trippa alla Pisana - in Pisa, Italy: onion, celery, carrot, garlic fried in oil, with tomatoes and pancetta or guanciale, topped with parmigiano cheese
Trippa alla Romana — in Italy (done with white wine and tomatoes)
Trippa alla Savoiarda — in Piedmont/Italy (stewed with vegetables, white wine, sauce from roasted beef and served covered with grated Parmigiano Reggiano/Grana Padano cheese)
Vette darmen - Traditional, though now on the verge of being obsolete, West-Flemish dish, the tripe is seasoned and fried in a buttered pan.
Ojree — Pakistani curry made from finely chopped and tenderized goat tripe
Obe ata pelu Shaaki — Nigerian stew made with large chunk of beef and goat tripe
Pepper soup with tripe — Nigerian hot peppered liquid soup with bite-sized tripe
牛肚 / 金錢肚 (Mandarin: niudu/jinqiandu; Cantonese, ngautou/gumtsintou) — Chinese cuisine tripe with inner lining resembling ancient Chinese coin with square hole, gives its name: "coin stomach". The dish is usually served steamed with spring onion and garlic sauce, or just boiled in water served with sweet soya sauce with chilli and spring onions as a dipping sauce.
tripas à moda do Porto — tripe with white beans, in Portuguese cuisine, a dish typical of the city of Porto. It is called dobrada elsewhere in Portugal.
Tripe soup — in Jordan, this is a stew made with tripe and tomato sauce.
Tripe soup — in Somalia, and Djibouti known as calooley is a stew made with different sauces.
Related dishes
In Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries, the close cognate tripas tends to denote small intestines rather than stomach lining. Dishes of this sort include:
Tacos de tripa — Mexican tacos filled with soft or crunchy fried small intestines
Another type of food made from the small intestines are chitterlings (chitlins).
