Beef-Tripe (Experiment 3)

By now, you would know I am conducting a few experiments, preparing for when I receive my lovely locally grown, grass fed Pure Angus beef....Yep, I ordered a full beast...But I need to know what; if any of the organs I shall keep....I have already blogged about the Tongue., and it is delicious...and I have just blogged about the tail......Next on the list of experiments is the Tripe....... The tongue and tail were a huge success. I'm not so sure of the tripe though......and there would be sooo much of it to store....


I could only find one butcher who had a supply of tripe, and that was in the local shopping centre.  The tripe was very clean, in comparison to the footage I watched on River Cottage one time.  As part of my preparation with all this meat, I have decided not to wear gloves while preparing these meats.....I need to get in touch with the meat, feel it, know it and know that what I am preparing is fresh, good and wholesome....I also need to do this to somewhat remove the mentality of what it actually is....and where it comes from..... 

I cut the tripe into bite sized pieces then placed it into the small crockpot, along with a big bunch of herbs from the garden...some roasted garlic from the freezer, some stock from the ox-tail soup...and 1 1/2 cans of tomatoes......got it cooking...after about 2 1/2 hours, I tasted the tripe.....and it was surprisingly rubbery....Yep...Like chewing rubber.  If you do plan to prepare your own tripe....don't cut it small like I did, as it will shrink heaps.....there are 4 pieces on the spoon below...so you can imagine the shrinkage. After tea, I tried it again....and decided it was cooked and ready for the rest of the family to taste it as well......


the comments I received were interesting....
* It's a texture thing
* It's different
* It's interesting
* This must be what it is like to eat a cooked jellyfish
* There's just no flavour in it on it's own
* It's ok, but No, I don't want another piece
* I had to spit mine out
* Texturally challenging
* That's the wrong colour, it's supposed to be in milk and onions.....(Mum)
* I'm not tasting it, I don't know where it comes from, I'm not trying that or the tongue....How Grosse. (DS19)

Conclusion: I won't be asking for the tripe, but I am very satisfied with tasting it....Would I try it again? Yes, I would. It certainly didn't taste horrible. It just didn't taste like I had eaten anything. Maybe cooking it another way would add more flavour to it, or make it more palatable, but for now; I can't see the benefits of storing it in the freezer, let alone paying for the tripe to be prepared. 
No we won't be asking to keep the tripe. But we can say at least; We have tried it!


Are you a tripe person...do you remember your parents making tripe? Was it like my mum expected, in milk and onions?