Trippa alla romana (Roman-Style Tripe)
Ingredients
- 1 kilo 2 lbs tripe, pre-cooked and cut into strips (see Notes)
- 100 g 3-1/2 oz pancetta, cut into cubes
- 1 medium onion finely chopped
- 1 carrot peeled and finely chopped
- 1 celery stalk peeled and finely chopped
- 1 dried red hot pepper peperoncino or a pinch of red pepper flakes (optional)
- White wine
- Salt and pepper
- 250-300 g 1/2-2/3 lb canned tomatoes, sieved, or passata di pomodoro
- Olive oil or lard
- To finish the dish:
- A handful of mentuccia Roman mint—or other mint
- Freshly grated pecorino romano cheese q.b.
Instructions
- Start by sautéing the pancetta in olive oil (or lard) in a large pot, together with the peperoncino if using. (The traditional vessel for cooking tripe is a large terracotta pot, and using one does seem to give you extra depth of flavor.) Add onion, carrot and celery, and continue sautéing, seasoning with salt and pepper, until the vegetables are nice and soft. (Adding a tablespoon of water from time to time ensures that this soffritto will not brown.)
- Add your pre-cooked tripe (see below), cut into bite-sized strips (along with a pinch of red pepper flakes if using those). Mix it all well, and allow to simmer so that the tripe begins to insaporire, or absorb the flavors of the soffritto.
- Add a splash of white wine, and when it has evaporated, add crushed tomatoes. The more you add, the more saucy the dish will be. (Any excess sauce is absolutely wonderful over pasta!) Cover and simmer, stirring from time to time, until the tripe is tender but still ever so slightly chewy and the sauce well reduced, about 30-45 minutes.
- About 5 minutes before you are ready to serve the tripe, add a handful of mint. Serve hot, topped with a generous grating of pecorino cheese.
Notes
In Italy, you can find tripe that has been almost entirely pre-cooked, so that you need only simmer it with the tomato sauce for, say, 30-45 minutes and it’s ready to eat. Outside Italy, you can sometimes find pre-cooked tripe in Italian neighborhoods. Otherwise, tripe does usually come partially pre-cooked, but still needs considerable further cooking before you can use it for this dish. Pre-cooking also removes some of the ‘gamy’ flavor that tripe can sometimes have. Simmer the whole tripe in water to cover with an onion, garlic and a spring of parsley (you can add carrot and celery, too, if you like) for about an hour. Or more: some tripe you buy can take as long as 3 hours to cook, so ask your butcher or store assistant about it.