Callos (Tripe Stew)

Preparing the Beans

Soak the beans, overnight, in a bowl with water that is about 3-inches above the beans with 1 teaspoon of salt.

Rinse and drain the next day when about to cook.

In a medium sized saucepan, place the beans and add water about 3 inches from the beans and bring to a boil then simmer till the beans are almost tender but not too tender.

Set aside till ready to be mixed in the Callos mix.

Cleaning & Preparing the Tripe

Most of the time, you can now buy tripe that has already been cleaned. If you get tripe that has not yet been cleaned, here is the method of cleaning.

Wash the whole tripe with water.

Using the inverted side of the knife, the non-sharp part, scrape the tripe and remove the food that has been left on it. This is the very tedious part; or else it will be awful smelling.

Now soak for about 1 hour in water that has about 1 teaspoon of ground alum dissolved in it. This is to remove the yucky smell of the tripe.

Now cut the tripe into bite size pieces; 1 ½ by ½ inches.

Get a casserole that you can place the tripe in and fill it with water about 3 inches from the tripe.

Bring this mixture to a boil and let it boil for about 15 minutes.

Then throw out the boiled water and rinse the tripe. You are getting rid of the extra gunk that you could not remove.

Rinse your casserole and place water about 4 inches from the top of the tripe, place 1 or 2 bay leaves, half of the peppercorns, and a teaspoon of salt.

Now bring this to a boil then turn down the heat to a simmer. Add water if it gets too low. It usually takes about 1 to 2 hours to cook.

Simmer the tripe till it is tender. To know if it is tender, get a barbecue stick and poke the tripe and see if there is no more resistance in the tripe.

Remove the tripe for the cooking liquid and set aside but reserve the cooking liquid.

Preparing the Calf’s Foot and Tendon

Place the cut up calf’s foot or pork trotters and tendon in a large saucepan.

Fill up with water until about 2 inches from the top of meat.

Put 1 or 2 bay leaves, and the other half of the peppercorns, and 1 teaspoon of salt.

Bring to a boil and then turn down to a low simmer; adding water if it gets low; simmer for about 2 hours or till the tendon and calf’s foot skin are tender.

Drain the the foot from the broth but save broth.

Now remove the skin from the foot and slice into 1-inch square pieces.

Cut the tendon into 1 inch lengths. Set aside.

Putting all the Callos together:

In a large casserole, set over medium-low fire, pour in the olive oil.

Put in the chopped garlic and sauté for 2 minutes.

Add the onions and continue to sauté for another 5 minutes.

Pour in the tomato paste and continue to sauté for 2 minutes.

Pour in about 2 cups of the tripe broth.

Continue to simmer for about 2 minutes.

Now add the softened beans and continue to simmer for 1 minute.

Get the tripe, calf's or pig's foot and tendon, chorizo de Bilbao, and add to casserole.

Simmer for another 30 minutes to get the flavor into the tripe.

At the time, fix the flavor according to your taste (salt, pepper, Tabasco hot pepper sauce) and add the sliced pimiento slices.

If there is too little liquid, add the remaining broth but don’t make it too soupy.

When it is cool, refrigerate and then reheat when about to serve.

Better served the next day when it has aged a bit. So this should be made a day before you want to serve it.