Menudo

The tripe scrubbed with coarse salt and lime, blanched and rinsed before any cooking starts — and nothing later makes up for skipping it.

Pork, Beef. Not vegetarian — contains beef, pork.

Ingredients

the tripe

• 1.5 kg beef tripe, honeycomb
• 4 tablespoons coarse salt, for scrubbing
• 4 limes, for scrubbing
• 1 pig's trotter, split

the pot

• 3 litres water
• 1 onion, halved
• 8 cloves garlic
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 tablespoon dried oregano
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 400 g tinned hominy, drained

the chilli

• 8 guajillo chillies, stalks and seeds removed
• 2 ancho chillies, stalks and seeds removed
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin

to serve

• 1 white onion, finely chopped
• dried oregano, to crumble
• lime wedges
• ground chile piquin
• corn tortillas, as on their own page

Method

1. THE TRIPE IS SCRUBBED WITH COARSE SALT AND LIME BEFORE ANY COOKING STARTS, AND NOTHING LATER MAKES UP FOR SKIPPING IT. This is where the dish is won or lost and it is done at the sink, not at the stove. Each piece is laid flat, covered in coarse salt, and scrubbed hard on both sides with a cut lime held in the hand, honeycomb side especially, then rinsed. Then it is blanched -- fifteen minutes in boiling water -- and rinsed AGAIN, and that blanching water is thrown away. Four hours of simmering afterwards tenderises badly prepared tripe perfectly well and does nothing whatever about how it smells, which is the entire reason people say they do not like menudo.
2. THE BLANCHING WATER IS DISCARDED AND THE POT STARTED AGAIN WITH FRESH. It will be grey and will carry a strong smell. Simmering the soup in it, to save a step or keep some imagined flavour, puts everything the preparation just removed straight back in.
3. IT IS CUT INTO STRIPS AFTER BLANCHING AND NOT BEFORE. Whole sheets are far easier to scrub and to hold under a tap. Once blanched they are firm and cut cleanly into strips about two centimetres by five, which is the size that fits on a spoon.
4. THE TROTTER IS THERE FOR BODY AND IS NOT SERVED. Split, in for the whole four hours, and lifted out at the end. Tripe is almost pure protein and gives a thin broth; the trotter is full of gelatine, and it is why a good menudo broth has a slight stickiness on the lips. Without it the soup tastes watery however long it cooks.
5. THE HOMINY IS TINNED HERE AND GOES IN LAST. This is the opposite choice from a pozole, where the dried grain's bursting is the whole dish. Here the tripe sets the timetable -- four hours -- and dried maize cooked that long disintegrates. Tinned hominy, in for the final twenty minutes, keeps its shape.
6. Each piece of tripe laid flat, covered with the coarse salt, and SCRUBBED HARD on both sides with a cut lime, honeycomb side especially. Then rinsed thoroughly.
7. Put in a pot, covered with water, brought to the boil and BLANCHED 15 MINUTES.
8. DRAINED, the blanching water THROWN AWAY, and the tripe RINSED AGAIN under the tap.
9. Cut into strips about 2 cm by 5 cm.
10. Put in a clean pot with the trotter, the 3 litres of FRESH water, the onion, 8 cloves of garlic, bay, oregano and 1 tablespoon salt.
11. Brought to the boil, SKIMMED, then simmered 3 HOURS 30 MINUTES to 4 HOURS, topped up as needed.
12. TESTED: a strip should be tender enough to bite through easily but still have some chew. If it is rubbery, another hour.
13. The chillies toasted on a dry pan 30 SECONDS a side, soaked 20 minutes and DRAINED.
14. Blended with the 3 cloves of garlic, the cumin and a ladle of broth, then STRAINED into the pot.
15. The hominy added and everything simmered 20 MINUTES more. The trotter LIFTED OUT and discarded.
16. Tasted and salted. Served with onion, oregano, lime, ground chilli and tortillas.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Mexico · All recipes