Mondongo

Ingredients

• 1.2 kg honeycomb tripe, cleaned and cut into 3 cm strips
• 4 limes, halved
• 250 ml white vinegar
• 2 bitter oranges, juiced
• 8 garlic cloves, crushed
• 2 onions, finely chopped
• 1 green pepper, diced
• 6 culantro leaves, shredded
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 3 tbsp tomato puree
• 2 tsp dried oregano
• 1.5 litres beef stock
• 500 g cassava, peeled and cut into chunks
• 300 g taro, peeled and cut into chunks
• 300 g pumpkin, peeled and cubed
• 1 green plantain, cut into thick rounds
• 1 tsp black pepper, freshly ground
• 1 scotch bonnet, left whole — optional

Method

1. Scrub the tripe

   Rub the tripe hard with the cut limes and a fistful of salt, working into every fold, then rinse and repeat with the vinegar until the water runs clear and the smell is faint and clean. This scrub is the entire dish: skip it and no amount of simmering will remove the barnyard note, because it lives on the surface, not in the meat.

2. Parboil until slack

   Cover the tripe with fresh water, add the bitter orange juice and boil for ninety minutes, skimming the grey foam off the top for the first ten. Drain and discard that water; it carries everything you just loosened, and cooking the stew in it undoes the scrub.

   1 h 30 min

3. Check the bite

   Pinch a strip between finger and thumb. It should give like a firm mushroom, not squeak like a rubber band; if it squeaks, give it another thirty minutes in fresh water before you go near the sofrito.

4. Build the sofrito

   Heat the oil in a caldero and sweat the onion, green pepper, garlic and culantro over a low flame for ten minutes, until soft and sweet with no colour on them. Rushing this on high heat browns the garlic, and burnt garlic turns the whole pot bitter in a way tomato cannot cover.

5. Stew the tripe

   Stir in the tomato puree and oregano and cook two minutes to lose the tinny edge, then add the drained tripe, the stock and the whole scotch bonnet if you want the perfume without the burn. Simmer covered for forty minutes; keep the chilli intact, because a split one turns a family pot into a dare.

   40 min

6. Add the viveres

   Drop in the cassava, taro, pumpkin and plantain and simmer uncovered for twenty-five minutes. The pumpkin is meant to fall apart and thicken the broth, so do not fish it out when it softens; the cassava should still hold its edges.

   25 min

7. Season and rest

   Fish out the chilli, grind in the black pepper and taste for salt only now, at the end. The stock reduced for an hour and anything you salted at the start would be twice as loud in the bowl.