Either you love it or you hate it, no in-between!
For me this soup will always remind me of my grandfather. He used to cook this particular soup, as it was very difficult to clean/wash the tripe. The bad smell of tripe put me off tasting it for years. Now, it’s one of the dishes I miss the most when I’m not home in Romania.
Note that you can buy washed tripe nowadays and I appreciate very much that I do not have to clean/wash it for two days before cooking like my dear grandfather had done.
Enjoy!
romanian beef tripe soup
Ingredients
Bone broth
500g beef bones
3.5 L water
1 tbsp salt
Tripe soup
1kg beef tripe, washed and sliced
2 big carrots, peeled
1 onion with the skin on, washed
100 celeriac or 1 parsnip, peeled
2 tbsp Vegeta (see my homemade recipe) or any vegetable flavoured salt or just salt
50 g white vinegar (9% alcohol)
Garlic mixture:
1 tbsp sunflower oil or any vegetable oil
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp all purpose flour
10 fat, garlic cloves, peeled
2-3 ladles of soup
Egg and cream thickener (whisk all together):
3 egg yolks
300 g creme fraiche or sour cream
2 ladles of boiling soup
Soup colouring (optional)
1 red bell-pepper, pickled, finely sliced, or 1 carrot, grated
25 g sunflower or vegetable oil
To serve: fresh white bread , additional creme fraiche or sour cream, and chilies for spiciness.
Method
Broth
In a pot pour the water, add the bones and salt, put a wooden stirring spoon on top of the pot and cover with a lid. It’s an old trick and this way you won’t have spilled soup on the hob, when it starts boiling.
Keep the heat on low after it starts boiling. After 1 ½ hours you will have around 3L of soup. Strain it and keep the broth.
Soup
In a pot add the broth and tripe and cook for 1.5 hours on low heat.
After 1.5 hours add vegetables and Vegeta. The tripe will be almost cooked at this point.
After 30 minutes, take out the vegetables.
Add the garlic mixture and vinegar.
Optional: If you want to add a beautiful yellow colour to your soup, in a separate pan sauté peppers or carrots in the oil for a few minutes, then add to the soup.
After 2 minutes take the soup from the hob and add the egg and cream thickener.
Stir a few times, cover with the lid and leave to rest for 10 minutes before eating.
Serve with white bread (see the recipe here), more creme fraiche or sour cream and fresh chili for spiciness.
Tips & cheats
Substitute tripe with chicken with bones and skin on, if you don’t dare to eat tripe. The steps are the same, but you make a chicken broth instead. Cook the chicken on the bone for the broth, then shred the meat only (discarding bones and skin) and add it to the soup almost at the end of cooking time as it is already cooked.
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