Tripe in Tomato Sauce with Peas
(Trippa con Pomodoro e Piselli - Trippa cu’ Sucu e Piseddi)
Because to clean and prepare the tripe required a tedious and long process, it was a very inexpensive part of the interiors of beef, pork or lamb, and used for food by the poor people or cooked in first-class restaurants for their gourmet customers. Today most supermarkets carry cleaned and par-cooked tripe, it needs to be briefly cooked until your preferred tenderness and sautéed into a tomato sauce or mixed with onion, celery, carrots and olive oil-lemon dressing. The honeycomb tripe is considered the best and the most popular. In Sicily there are many ways to cook tripe: we will propose Trippa cu’ pumaroru (tripe with tomato and peas); some prefer to add potatoes instead of peas. Tripe with tomato sauce is the most popular and traditional way to prepare it. It is not a complicated dish and can be prepared with few ingredients; it is very tasty and especially preferred in cold weather accompanied with crusty bread and a dry red wine.
Below you will find the tripe recipe I used to make at Joe’s of Avenue U in Brooklyn and a family traditional tripe recipe sent by a Ken Patti.
- Serving Size4-6
- MeatsTripe in Tomato Sauce with Peas
Ingredients
- 4 lb. of par-cooked tripe
- 2 bay leaves (laurel)
- 4 tablespoons of olive oil
- 1 onion finely diced
- 1 heaping tablespoon of tomato paste
- 1 stalk of celery finely chopped(optional)
- 1 carrot finely minced (optional)
- 1 can of Italian peeled tomatoes (28 oz.)
- 12 basil leaves, torn
- salt and pepper to taste
- grated pecorino cheese to taste
- 1 – 12oz. package of sweet peas cooked following manufacturer directions
Instructions
Cut the tripe in strips, about 1 ½ by ½ inch and place in a pot with an abundant amount of lightly salted water with the bay leaves, bring to a boil. Cook for 25 minutes, remove from pot using a slotted spoon and place in a colander to drain. Discard bay leaves.
Drain and set on the side the liquid from the peeled tomatoes, cut the tomatoes into pieces, remove most of the seeds and set aside with the tomato juice.
In a large skillet, heat olive oil over a low heat, add onions, optional celery, carrots and cook for about 5 minutes, raise to medium, add the tomato paste diluted into ½ cup of water and cook for an additional 5 minutes.
Add tripe into the pot, sauté for 5 minutes and add the peeled tomatoes, salt and pepper.
Simmer for 25 minutes, taste for salt and pepper and continue cooking until tripe is tender.
Add cooked peas, bring to a boil and serve immediately with crusty bread, a hearty red wine, pecorino cheese and red pepper
At Joe’s of Avenue U, we served the tripe with stewed potatoes.
Ken Patti's Tripe Recipe
I am grateful to Ken Patti and pleased to add this Sicilian family recipe for “tripe” to our collection. Again thanks for sharing; here is the recipe:
My family came from Palermo to Buffalo New York in 1900. My grandmother made tripe in sauce for the family as part of our Sunday traditional meal at her house. I still make it to this day and would love to share the recipe with you. We buy our tripe from the Broadway Market in Buffalo as it is the cleanest, whitest, purest tripe available. Rinse tripe under cold water until you feel it is as clean as possible. Place in large cooking pan and cover with water. I usually buy four pounds for our family meal. I add about three ounces of virgin olive oil, oregano to taste, salt and pepper, sliced garlic, and two ounces of lemon juice. Allow the tripe to boil for about an hour then simmer for another hour. When done cut into thin slices about 3 inches long and a half-inch wide. Place in crockpot with thin spaghetti sauce and cook for the rest of the day until dinnertime. Cut up a loaf of fresh Italian bread with butter and serve the tripe hot. I hope you can use this, as it is a family favorite.