One of the many soups that flavor my childhood is beef tripe soup, known as ciorba de burta (pronounced chor-ba de boo-rh-ta) in Romanian. 

In many places around the world, this soup is called with different names such as Flaczki in Polish, Patsas in Greek, Shkembe Chorba in Serbian, Menudo in Spanish, among others. And it is cooked in different ways, some with an egg drop sauce with heavy cream and others with a tomato-based sauce.

My dairy-free soup variation below cultures a modest flavor of peppers and a perfect dose of sauerkraut juice to lighten the deep broth enriched with beef roast and tripe. 

I highly recommend this soup if you need a boost of nutrition and vitamin B-12 (a very important micronutrient needed for our body to produce energy). Tripe is impressively nutritious offering a great source of protein with a low-calorie count & low-fat content.

While tripe itself may be of acquired taste and texture, like most animal organs, they all provide some of the most amazing health benefits. 😊 Try my recipe and please share your versions in the comments below!

Ingredients

For the Soup:

4 L of water

1 lb of beef chuck roast or beef bones

2 bay leaves

1 tbspn of black peppercorns

1 lb of beef tripe (washed)

1 medium parsnip (undiced)

3 medium carrots (undiced)

2 ribs of celery (undiced)

2 medium potatoes (undiced)

1/2 cup of green peas

1 red bell pepper (diced)

1 tablespoon of salt

1 teaspoon of black pepper

1/4 teaspoon of red chili flakes

50 mL of sauerkraut juice

2 crushed cloves of garlic

Bunch of lovage and dill

Directions

1. After you wash and prep the ingredients, it’s important to very thoroughly clean the beef tripe – you can follow the steps in this video here to clean it 

2. Add the beef chuck roast into a pot with water and boil on medium heat, then remove all the foam that appears

3. After the foam is removed, add 2 small bay leaves and black peppercorns and let them boil with the beef for an hour to create your broth (this step really boosts the level of your tripe soup)

4. Remove the beef chuck roast from the pot and with a sieve, remove the bay leaves & black peppercorns (I use the beef along with the vegetables you will boil in this soup to make a Romanian beef salad on the side called salata de boeuf – it will taste amazing with the vegetables absorbing the flavors from the soup)

5. Add the tripe, which you can chop in a few equally-large pieces in case you need to fit into the pot, and let it boil for a full hour or until you can easily slide a fork through it

6. Remove the tripe from the pot and let it cool, then add in your vegetables (carrots, parsnip, celery, green peas, onion, and potatoes) to the same pot

7. Boil the vegetables for at least 20 minutes over medium heat until you can easily slide a fork through them (add in more hot water if necessary)

8. While your vegetables boil, slice your tripe into thin noodle-like portions (I made them as small in length as my smallest finger, but it’s your preference)

9. Remove your vegetables to use for a salad or discard them, and then add in the sliced noodle-portions of tripe to boil for at least another full hour

10. After 30 minutes of your tripe noodles boiling, add in your chopped red bell pepper and seasonings (salt, black pepper, red chili flakes)

11. After the full hour has passed, remove 2 ladles of hot soup into a separate bowl and mix in the sauerkraut juice with the crushed garlic before incorporating this bowl’s mixture back into the soup

12. Finally, add in the lovage and dill before turning off the heat and wait another 10 minutes before serving

Ingredient Purchase Recommendations:

Biotta Organic Sauerkraut Juice (6-pack)

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