🇲🇽 Mexico · Northern and central Mexico (menudo in the north, pancita in the centre)
MenudoMexican tripe soup
A Mexican soup of beef tripe, usually with cow's feet, simmered for hours; the red version carries a dried-chile broth, and in the north it also carries hominy. It is served with onion, cilantro, lime, oregano and dried chile.
Origin and history
Menudo is a Mexican tripe soup with a red chile base, eaten above all in northern and central Mexico. Food writers describe it as a working-class dish that grew out of using the cheaper parts of the animal, and one dates its beginnings to the 1930s; it is served as a caldo with raw onion, cilantro and lime at the table.
Make it at home
- Makes
- 8 servings
- Total time
- 5 h 30 min
- Hands-on
- 45 min
Ingredients
- 1.4 kg3 lb beef tripe, ideally honeycomb and book tripe in equal parts
- 900 g2 lb calf's or cow's feet, cut in 2 to 4 pieces by the butcher
- 125 ml1/2 cup white vinegar, for cleaning the meat
- 1 head of garlic, halved crosswise
- 1 white onion, halved
- 1 tsp dried Mexican oregano
- 5.5 l6 quarts water
- salt, about 4 tsp, to taste
- 4 dried guajillo or colorado chiles, stemmed and seeded
- 2 garlic cloves, for the chile purée
- 1/2 tsp cumin seeds, lightly toasted
- 225 g1 1/4 cups dried hominy (pozole corn), optional, northern style; soaked 12 to 24 hours
- 1 cup finely chopped white onion, to serve
- 1 cup chopped cilantro, to serve
- 5 limes, halved, to serve
- dried oregano and crushed chile (chiltepín, piquín or árbol), to serve
- warm corn tortillas, to serve
Method
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1. Rinse the tripe and feet well, then soak them for 30 minutes in the vinegar mixed with 1 litre (4 cups) of water and 2 teaspoons of salt. Drain, rinse and cut the tripe into 3 cm (1 in) pieces.
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2. If using hominy, simmer the soaked, drained kernels in water with half the garlic and onion for about 2 1/2 hours until the kernels burst open, then set aside in their liquid.
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3. Put the calf's feet in a large pot with the water and the other half of the garlic and onion. Bring to a boil, skim, and simmer partly covered for 20 minutes.
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4. Add the tripe, the remaining salt and the oregano. Bring back to a boil, then simmer very low for about 4 hours, until the tripe is tender but still slightly chewy.
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5. Meanwhile, simmer the chiles and the 2 garlic cloves in water for 10 to 15 minutes until soft, then blend with a little of the cooking water and the cumin to a smooth purée.
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6. Lift out the feet, cool them a little, pick off the meat and soft gelatinous parts, discard the bones and return the chopped meat to the pot.
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7. Stir in the chile purée (and the hominy with its liquid, if using) and simmer 20 to 30 minutes. Fish out the garlic and onion halves and adjust the salt.
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8. Serve in deep bowls and let everyone add chopped onion, cilantro, a squeeze of lime, oregano and crushed chile, with warm tortillas.
Notes
- Menudo is defined by tripe (and, in most versions, calf's or cow's feet) in a chile-red broth. Hominy is a point of disagreement: the recipe by Pati Jinich that this one follows includes it, while other writers treat hominy as the mark of pozole, so it is optional here.
- Red menudo, with dried chiles, is mainly eaten in northern Mexico; white menudo, more common in central Mexico, is made without the red chile, so skip the purée for it.
- Fresh mint, tied in a bundle in the pot and chopped at the table, appears in the PBS recipe alongside cilantro, onion and lime; add it if you like.
- It improves when made a day ahead; skim the fat before reheating.
- Time includes only the cooking; soak the hominy the day before. Ask the butcher for cleaned (blanched) tripe.
Adapted from PBS Food, Red Menudo and The Takeout, Menudo vs. pozole.
At the festivals
No festival we list has printed it on a menu yet.