En Español Recipe ↆ
Mondongo (Dominican tripe stew) might not be some people’s cup of tea, but in the Dominican Republic, we love it, and it still is a comforting special treat reserved for special occasions and it’s greatly appreciated by most of my fellow countrypeople.
Table of Contents
Why we ❤️ it
Many years ago we took a poll amongst our readers called “Mondongo: Yucky or Yummy?”. Regardless of my personal opinion, and considering our diverse international audience, my money was on a landslide victory for the Yuckies.
Instead, they lost. By a whole lot.
Whether one’s a fan or not, it doesn’t really matter, this rich, insanely flavorful sopa de mondongo is very popular amongst Dominicans and the occasional adventurous foreigner.
What’s mondongo?
For those innocently unaware, Mondongo is the name for beef, cow, pig, or goat tripe, and intestines in the Dominican Republic. Although it is by far the most popular edible innard in our country, it is not the only one: butifarra, bofe, and pico y pala are some other curious names for some Dominican foods of dubious provenance.
Beef tripe is the name for honeycomb tripe or the stomach of a cow. Tripe is also known as chitterlings in certain parts of the US. Elsewhere, it is called callos, menudo, and other equally non-descriptive names.
Mondongo soup is not unique to the Dominican Republic – it can be found in several countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. It goes by the same name in Colombia and Puerto Rico, though they differ from ours in some ways. The delicious Puerto Rican mondongo is the closest to Dominican-style mondongo.
How to cook it
Traditionally, mondongo is cooked after being cleaned very well, boiled, and stewed with vegetables, herbs, seasonings, and tomato sauce.
How to clean it
The honeycomb should be cleaned and bleached before starting, this is already done if you buy it in the supermarket. For extra precaution and peace of mind, you can scrub with salt and white vinegar when you wash it, then rinse it thoroughly. Some people swear by washing with bicarbonate soda instead, then rinsing thoroughly. Some wash with bitter orange or lime juice.
I did not do this for the video because I didn’t find it necessary. Bear in mind that any surviving germs will be killed during the lengthy cooking process.
How long to boil
I am not entirely sure why, but I have found that the boiling process varies wildly every time I make this. Sometimes I have it boiled tender in less than an hour, one time it took four! I don’t know how long this will take for you, so do this in advance if you’re cooking for guests. If you have a pressure cooker or instant pot, using it would help to shorten the boiling time.
Serving suggestions
Oh, that’s easy: arroz blanco (white rice), which for us goes with almost anything. Avocado is always welcome (we love that thing!). Tostones (fried green plantains) are a nice extra treat. Some people serve it with yuca hervida (boiled cassava), one of our favorite root vegetables.
And if you really want to impress a Dominican, serve some agrio de naranja (homemade spicy vinegar) alongside, though whatever hot sauce you have in your fridge would do in a pinch.
About our recipe
We Dominicans have a complicated relationship with mondongo, we love it, but we are -unsurprisingly – also very picky about where we eat, and who we eat it from. This is my family recipe, but everyone swears by their own secret ingredient and method, so there are about as many recipes as there are Dominican home cooks.
There are some versions where it is mixed with pork or beef trotters, but we have a separate recipe for the solo dish. Some call a mixture of these two dishes “patimondongo”, a mouthful, in more than one sense.
Different vegetables are added to mondongo depending on the cook’s taste, and family tradition. Is your Mondongo recipe different? We’d love to hear about it.
This recipe yields 4 generous servings or 6 modest ones.
Buen provecho!
Originally published: Apr 13, 2002
For more information please see the list of How to cook tripe stew
Detail: 🔗