Shkembe chorba (Bulgarian tripe soup)

We already gave you some tips and tricks to get rid of your hangover. But every country has its own traditional dishes to make the process go faster. We like to give you a taste of the international anti-hangover cuisine. In this episode we give you three recipes to make tripe soup. A very popular way to wash away the hangover in many countries. Here are the recipes from Bulgaria, Georgia and Mexico.

A lot of people are not a big fan of tripe soup since the meat comes from the cow’s stomach and yes, some people find that icky. However there is far more to eat than just steak. Try some liver, have some kidneys, eat some heart, but for now let’s try stomach.

Ingredients Bulgarian tripe soup (shkembe chorba):
½ kilo tripe (meat from the side of the calf’s stomach)
1 cup sunfloweroil
2 cups fresh milk
1 teaspoon paprika powder
1 tablespoon ground black pepper
1 tablespoon salt
2 garlic cloves, peeled and thinly diced
1/3 cup red wine vinegar
dried hot chili pepper mix

Boil the cut up tripe for about 30 minutes, add oil, milk, black pepper and paprika and boil for another 30 minutes occasionally topping up the water. The more you cook it, the better it will taste.
Combine the salt, garlic and vinegar in a separate cup, let it soak for about an hour. Serve this mix with the soup, as well as a second cup with mashed hot chili peppers. With these two cups you can bring extra flavor to the tripe soup.
The tripe soup is traditionally best eaten with beer or rakia.

Khashi (Georgian tripe soup)

Ingredients Georgian tribe soup (khashi):
1/2 cup of suet (fat around kidneys and loins of beef or mutton that yields tallow)
1 calf’s foot, split
1 pound of beef tripe
8 cups of cold water
150 grams of firm white bread, in pieces
1/2 cup of milk
Salt to taste
Freshly ground black pepper
4 garlic cloves, peeled and grated
The suet should be grinded, before you put it in a large stew pot. Add the calf’s foot and the cut up tripe. Cook it until the meat starts giving off juice. Then add the water and cook the soup softly for five till six hours.
Meanwhile soak the bread in the milk. Ten minutes before serving the soup remove the calf foot and add the soften bread, salt and pepper.
Take some broth from the soup and mix it with with the chopped garlic. Than add it with the soup again and it’s ready to serve.

Menudo (Mexican tripe soup)

Ingredients Mexican tripe soup (menudo):
1 ½ kilo tripe
1 cow’s feet
½ kilo marrow bones
4 large garlic cloves
1 medium onion
1 ½ teaspoon salt to taste
2 teaspoons dry oregano

Sauce:
6 Guajillo peppers cleaned, seeded, open flat, and deveined
1 teaspoon of freshly ground cumin (optional)
3 garlic cloves

Aditional to bring extra flavor to the menudo:
Crushed piquin peppers
Lemons cut into wedges
Dry Mexican oregano
Chopped white onion

Simmer the cow feet and marrow bones in a large pot with 3 liters of water, 5 cut up garlic cloves and a sliced onion for about 15 minutes at medium heat without covering. During this time, skim off the foam that forms. Add the tripe and oregano and cook for about two till two and a half hours approximately.
Remove the cow feet and marrow bones from the pot. Skim the fat that forms on top of the broth. Once the Cow foot cools a little, remove the bones and chop the meaty parts off and put them back in the pot.
While the meat is getting ready, you can prepare the guajilo sauce. Toast the guajilo peppers without burning them. Place the toasted peppers in a bowl and cover with water. Let them soak for about 25 minutes until soft. After that, drain the peppers and place them in your blender with the rest of the garlic, ½ cup of the broth, and if you want the cumin. Blend until very smooth. Strain the sauce using a sieve and pour into the pot. Simmer the broth for another 30 minutes, partially covered. Taste to check how much salt you want to add.
You serve menudo with the additional crushed piquin peppers, lemons, oregano and chopped onion, as well as corn tortillas.

Micky Bumbar

More dishes in the Hangover Cures Dossier