Mondongo
A tripe and vegetable soup with a real, difficult history worth stating honestly: its whole-animal, offal-based cooking style traces through the transatlantic slave trade to African culinary traditions, and the dish began as working-class and enslaved-community food built on tripe and offal that wealthier households discarded, only later becoming a celebrated national dish eaten across class lines. Versions of mondongo exist across Latin America and the Caribbean under similar names, but Colombia's, built on corn and peas and strongly associated with the Andean region, has its own real regional identity, commonly eaten as a hearty weekend lunch.
Meat
Ingredients
- 1kg beef tripe, well-cleaned and cubed
- 300g pork, cubed
- 200g Colombian chorizo, sliced
- 2 potatoes, cubed
- 1 cup yuca, cubed
- 1 cup corn kernels
- 1 onion, chopped
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 tomatoes, chopped
- Scallion and cilantro, chopped
Steps
- Clean the tripe thoroughly and simmer in water for 1.5-2 hours until tender.
- In a separate pot, brown the pork and chorizo with onion and garlic.
- Add the tomatoes and cook down briefly, then combine with the cooked tripe and its broth.
- Add the potato, yuca, and corn, and simmer until the vegetables are tender.
- Finish with scallion and cilantro, and serve hot.