As someone who believes in eating nose to tail, I have always been intrigued by Mexican menudo, a hearty tripe soup (or stew) that is reputedly good for curing hangovers. I first encountered menudo while watching an old episode of Chef Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations (Season 5?). He was visiting Mexico and, as he tucked into a bowl, he made light of the soup having the same name as a former Latin boy band, whose lead singer was none other than Ricky Martin.

Like Chichi Wang of Serious Eats, author of a series of "The Nasty Bits" blog entries, I enjoy the texture of slow cooked honey comb tripe: delicate and almost gelatinous. Having grown up exposed to foods from many cultures, I have eaten beef tripe (omasum) at Chinese dim sum, where it is cooked crunchy and served with ginger and green onions (scallions). I have eaten beef tripe (honey comb) stewed in soy with star anise. I have even stewed beef tripe myself in store bought tomato salsa.

Stewing tripe in salsa was essentially my attempting to pair tripe with tomato and chile. It lead me to attempt a hominy-based menudo a year ago, with a small degree of success. Having come across Chichi Wang's attempt at Chef Rick Bayless' Menudo Rojo, I decided to try again, taking lessons learned from my first attempt. This time, I produced something sublimely good.

My Attempt at Menudo Rojo
Wang's recipe borrows from Chef Bayless' Authentic Mexican: Regional Cooking from the heart of Mexico, a reference cook book that has enjoyed almost 22 years of re-prints.

Authentic Mexican, published 1987
I recently came across a first edition at a public library.

Though, I did stray somewhat from Chef Bayless' recipe, making an African Kosayi to infuse chile into the menudo stock instead of a paste from dried chiles.

We will start with the African Kosayi, essentially a spicy red pepper sauce that is somewhat analogous to Vietnamese sriracha. The following recipe comes from an episode of the third season of the Australian Food Safari.

Recipe

Red Peppers

Red Peppers Post Boil

Seeding and Skinning the Larger Peppers

Peppers Pureed

Puree, corrected for Flavour with Vinegar and Sugar

What You'll Need:

• 2 red bell peppers
• approximately a dozen bird's eye chiles
• 5 cili merah chiles
• Any mild vinegar like rice wine vinegar
• Granulated white sugar
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• kosher salt to season

Essentially, any combination of sweet and hot chiles will do, so long as the ration is 1:1 by mass. The peppers I chose just happened to be varieties more common to Asian cuisine.

Method:

1. Place the peppers in a pot with a tight fitting lid, cover with cold water.
2. Place the pot over a burner set to medium heat and bring the water up to a simmer.
3. Lower the heat to medium low and simmer for 25 minutes covered
4. Remove from the heat and let the peppers cool until they are handle-able
5. Drain the peppers.
6. Dawn a pair of latex or vinyl gloves. Do NOT skip this step. Prolonged exposure to hot peppers, cooked or otherwise, can cause the capsaicin to seep into the skin. It burns!
7. For the larger peppers (i.e. not the bird's eye chiles), halve them, remove their seeds, and peel off the skins. Boiling the peppers like this is similar to roasting them. The flesh separates from the skins.
8. For the bird's eye chiles, just pull off the stems. They should come off rather easily.
9. Place the seeded and skinned pepper flesh into a blender along with the stemmed chiles
10. Blend until smooth
11. Strain the puree through a wire strainer. This will remove any errant seeds and skins.
12. Stir in the olive oil
13. Correct the flavour with vinegar and sugar. According to the source recipe, a Kosayi should not be too hot. For the above peppers, I added 2 tbsp each of vinegar and sugar.
14. Season to taste with kosher salt.

For the menudo itself, Chef Bayless' recipe employs pig trotters to impart a stickiness to the stock that comes from slow cooking collagen into gelatin. Please note that the tripe, more common at Chinese dim sum and served in bowls of Vietnamese Pho noodles, is layered omasum, the third of a cow's four stomachs. For this recipe, thicker and more substantial honey comb tripe is required. Omasum may actually dissolve completely from the long stewing in the following recipe.

Recipe

Honeycomb Tripe

Pig Trotters (above are pig's ears)

Par-cooked Trotters

Par-cooked Tripe in a Water Bath

Trotters post Braise

Tripe post Braise

Menudo Stock not yet De-Fatted

Ready for Final Assembly

Adding Back the Trotter Pieces and Tripe

Kosayi

Chile Infusion

Heating to Serve
What You'll Need:

• approximately 0.5 kg (1.2 lb) of honeycomb beef tripe
• 3 pig trotters (I like my menudo rather rich and serve bits of trotter with the tripe)
• 6 cloves of garlic
• traditional menudo seasoning (replacing the onion flake with one small onion and the red chile with 2 dried chiles)
• water to braise with
• kosher salt to season
• 1/4 cup of Kosayi

Traditional menudo seasoning is 2 parts dried oregano, 2 parts onion flakes, one part coriander seed, one part ground cumin, and one part crushed red chile. For this recipe, I added 2 tsp oregano, 1 tsp ground coriander seed, and 1 tsp cumin.

Method:

1. As Chef Bayless mentions in Authentic Mexican, North American beef tripe comes cleaned, so I forgoed the washing with lime and salt. However, I did par cook the tripe, by simmering it in boiling water for 20 minutes and removing it to an ice water bath. I did this for 2 reasons. Firstly, I find this reduces the characteristic smell that comes from cooking tripe. Secondly, when braising cuts of meat for soups or stews, I always pre-boil or pre-simmer them.
2. Likewise pre-simmer the pig's feet by adding them to already boiling water, bringing the liquid back up to a simmer, lowering the heat to medium-low, and simmering for an hour.
3. Drain the pig's feet, making sure to rinse off any accumulated scum.
4. Slice the tripe into pieces slightly larger than bite size. Chef Bayless's recipe recommends 2 inches by 1/2 inch.
5. Now, place the pig's feet into the bottom of a slow cooker and add enough water to cover by 5 cm.
6. French the onion and add it to the water along with the menudo seasonings and a pinch of salt
7. Bring the liquid up to a simmer by setting the slow cooker to high
8. Once it simmers, add the cut up tripe. Bring it back to a simmer and switch the slow cooker to low
9. Cook on low for 3 hours
10. Carefully remove the tripe and trotters from the slow cooker
11. Strain the stock to remove the vegetable matter.
12. Skim off the fat from the stock or refrigerate overnight to allow the fat to rise to the surface and solidify
13. Chop up the trotters, removing any bone shards
14. Bring the stock back up to a simmer on medium heat, diluting with water if it tastes too concentrated flavour-wise.
15. Add a ladel full of hot stock to the Kosayi and mix
16. Add the Kosayi mixture back to the stock
17. Add back the chopped trotters and tripe.
18. Bring back to a simmer.
19. Serve piping hot

A bowl of this menudo was very rich, sticky with gelatin, deeply savoury, and rather spicy. The textures were "offally" good!

According to Chef Bayless' recipe, menudo is served with fresh condiments that can include shredded cabbage, shredded lettuce, thinly sliced radish, finely chopped onion, oregano, lime wedges, and crisped fried tortillas.

Me, I enjoyed my bowl of menudo straight. I also froze individual servings to test it as a hangover cure.

Aside: Today, December 1, 2009 is World Aids Day. I post this dish using a red ingredient, red peppers, to raise awareness of the global AIDS epidemic. It is real and it has affected many people.



While AIDS has not touched me personally, I am participating to join Angela in mobilizing food bloggers and support Leela of the SpinachTiger and SheSimmers blogs, respectively.

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