Today’s pickled tripe experiment started with this frozen block of tripe purchased at Rolf’s Pork Store in Albany. After two years taking up space in the freezer, it was time to put it to work.
Our recent freezer shaming brought urgency to a long-delayed project: creating a pickled tripe in aspic to match the manna experienced in Pennsylvania’s Amish country in the summer of 2017.
We had visited the Green Dragon Friday market in Ephrata, PA and encountered a perfect food delivery system in the pickled tripe sold at King’s Meats in the market. The tripe was chewy yet tender as it should be; the flavor was just right with a spicy/barnyard/sour balance, and the tripe morsels were enrobed in a firm aspic that was cut into cubes for presentation and degustation. Could not be better.
Attempts to find a recipe, or simply a mail order opportunity to get more pickled tripe, were unsuccessful. King’s Meats does not have an online presence. William Woyes Weaver (W3), the pre-eminent authority on Pennsylvania Dutch (NOT Amish) cooking, referred me to his favorite butcher, Dundore & Heister, but they did not respond to our entreaties. Several folks, including the helpful Lancasterite Brian Yarvin, weighed in on Chowhound but mainly to report that they had not been able to source pickled tripe recipes. We would have to go it alone.
My 1.92 pound block of tripe, which looked like the product in the King’s Meats photo with compressed loops and layers, defrosted into a number of ragged strips that had been cut to a 2-inch maximum width. This was “cleaned” tripe which means the stomach contents had been discarded (otherwise it would be “green” tripe) as opposed to the bleached tripe found in Asian markets which is fine to drop into pho, but doesn’t have much residual flavor. Consulting various sources I decided I would turn on the fan on my range, simmer for five minutes to get rid of the worst foul odor, then start cooking for my recipe.
Tripe stock after a night in the refrigerator was thick but still soupy.
I recall making menudo with a Hispanic friend many years ago with all the windows open and a stench that lingered for days; that must have been green tripe. Today’s tripe had very little odor but the initial boil dislodged a number of bits of detritus. The pieces were hosed down then returned to the pot with fresh water (about 2 quarts) plus a rib of celery, a carrot, half an onion, a teaspoon of salt, a nice Penzey’s bay leaf and a teaspoon of pickling spice. This simmered 45 minutes till the pieces were the balance of tender/chewy I was looking for. (The pieces have an appealing rubbery texture when your teeth encounter them, but they quickly yield and separate when you bite down.) I left the tripe in the broth to cool slightly for another 15 minutes, then put the tripe pieces in a container where they could be tightly packed together. The broth was strained, reduced by about 1/3, and placed in its own container.
Pig Tails to the rescue! Except…
W3 had assured me the tripe would retain enough collagen to form jelly but this was not the case (maybe because of that 5-minute initial boil). There was no jelly in the tripe container after a night in the refrigerator, and the stock was thick but still liquid. Also, the stock tasted terrific! A nice warm-spice balance with a perky whiff of innards.
It was time to bring in the big guns: pigs’ feet. These are supposedly full of gelatin (in the connective tissue) that will render out into wonderful meat jelly. (Similar to what I had experienced when making head cheese, except that I should have added some pigs’ feet to the broth like many recipes specify to bring up the gelatin content.) And I had bought a package at Rolf’s along with my tripe for this exact eventuality. But a search of the freezers (which took maybe 30 minutes because of the aforementioned overloading) turned up no pigs feet and I recalled a suspiciously gelatinous cassoulet made not long ago by another family member.
Where to buy pigs feet locally? The butcher at my local chain scoffed at the concept. Healthy Living probably has them, but at a high price. What about Walmart? It’s become an under-the-radar resource for many ethnic foods and indeed they had pigs feet online—but not in my store, out of stock. But they had pigtails! Lots of connective tissue there. Would that work?
I added a pound of cleaned pigtails to the stock from last night (plus some water to bring it back to previous strength). Cooked an hour and a half, removed pigtails, strained and refrigerated stock again. This stock when cool had a whisker of fat on the top, which I removed, and was closer to jelly than the previous night but still jiggly rather than firm.
It was time to bring in the bigger gun: actual packets of unflavored gelatin. After all, it’s an animal product same as we’re trying to produce from scratch, so why throw shade on it? Still I was a bit embarrassed and shy so in reheating the broth I used just one packet (usually defined as the quantity required to jell 8 oz), for what would end up being close to 20 oz liquid. But I assumed the gelatin in the stock itself would kick in.
Also, since this is pickled tripe, we are going to add some vinegar. I used good old Bragg’s Apple Cider Vinegar “with the mother”. I’d planned to go for a 50/50 ratio, but after I had added 8 oz vinegar to 12 oz stock I felt like it was already as acid as I wanted. This could have been unfortunate: too little vinegar might have produced a boring dish after all this work; too much would have ruined it.
Back in the fridge again, in that same tight container with the tripe pieces pushing on each other, now the vinegar/stock/gelatin mixture poured over. I enjoy a fitful sleep and wake early to taste the result. The good news: we’ve nailed it, as far as texture and flavor. The tender/chewy texture is just right and the tripe pieces and jelly have just the sweet/sour comfort food result I’ve been looking for.
The jelly, however, is not what I wanted. It’s definitely a gel rather than liquid, and it sticks to the tripe pieces enhancing the flavor, but it is not firm like jello. I had decided to cool the tripe without cutting up the pieces, then expected to chop the finished product as you would divide portions of jello. But the structure of the gel crumbled as it was cut.
Today’s pickled tripe, finished product. Great taste, but need more gelatin.
If I served you today’s result as a charcuterie item or component of a pickle plate, I think you’d be delighted (unless you hate tripe of course). But we can do better, and we will. Upcoming experiments (with the new block of tripe I picked up today):
- Prepare as above but use pigs feet vs pigtails in the second-day stock. Cook until they fall apart to be sure all gelatin is released.
- Add 1 packet gelatin to each 8 oz of the original stock plus vinegar total (it will probably end up 3 or 4 packets). Note that this becomes a no-pork product, available to those who don’t eat pork.
I may also try to get back down to PA (a boring 5 hour drive from my location) and make a return trip to King’s Meats as well as the place W3 recommended. As a bonus, my birthday is on a Thursday this year which means I can eat for free at Shady Maple, then go to the Green Dragon the next day. How sweet is that?
