The cooking procedure of boiled tripe is: Clean and well wash the beef and lamb tripe, cut it into strips and put into boiled water to cook. Prepare flavoring paste with oil, vinegar, chili oil, fermented bean curd, parsley, chopped green onion, etc. When all is ready, take some tripe strips and dip into the paste to eat, which would be fresh, crispy, and delicious.

In the past, people were quite particular with the cooking of tripe, and different parts of the lamb tripe would be cut off for the customers to select whichever they like. Different parts of the tripe would need different time to cook, the shortest being several seconds. In the last few years, as the number of customers keeps increasing, the fresh tripe is difficult to preserve, and its supply is often in short. Consequently, the restaurants supplying tripe according to different parts have been extinct.

Except that the tripe must be fresh, the secret for top boiled tripe mainly falls on boiling, in other words the boiling time must be well managed, less or over boiled are not good cooks, for example, when it is overdone, it would be hard to chew. One poem in Assorted Poems for Snacks in Yan Capital reads, “It would be ready instantly in the boiling water, you just enjoyed it with various seasoning and a cup of wine. It is not completely chewed as my teeth are blunt, so I have to swallow it down as it is”. The author continued to say, “Put small square pieces of lamb tripe into boiling water, and take it out after an instant, this is called boiled tripe. Dip it into seasoning made of soy sauce, chopped onion, vinegar, sesame paste, etc. The tripe that is not well boiled is very crispy, although it is hard to chew, people just like it done that way and swallow down.” Therefore, the criteria for fine boiled tripe is crispy and fresh, but different parts of it need different timings in cooking.

In the past, the restaurants for boiled tripe were almost all managed by Hui people. The lamb tripe must be from sheep killed by Hui people, and the tripe would be well washed and cleaned. Whenever it smells bad, they will reject it. So their boiled tripe is well accepted by customers. Many celebrities in opera community favor it very much, such as Mei Lanfang, Ma Lianliang, Xiao Mogu, Junior Bai Yushuang, Li Wanchun. Boiled tripe is crispy, fresh, non-greasy, and it is said that it can be useful to cure stomach disease. People who are eating boiled tripe would often drink some liquor, then eat one or two Shaobing shortly baked, which would be really a comfortable experience. In consequence, the old Pekingese often like to eat boiled tripe, especially after the solar term of start of autumn, as people in Beijing have the custom of eating for the autumn, and another saying follows, “If you want to eat for the autumn, boiled tripe is a good choice”.

The earliest record for boiled tripe was during the reign of emperor Qianlong of Qing dynasty, and it was mostly managed by Hui people. The famous brands for it in Beijing are Tripe by Shi in Tianqiao, Tripe by Wang in Dong’an Market, Tripe by Zhang in Houmen, and Tripes by Yang, Feng, Man, etc.