Callos a la madrileña: Madrid tripe stew

Ingredients

• 1 kg beef tripe, blanched, cleaned, cut into 4–5 cm pieces
• 500 g pig's trotters
• 250 g pig's snout
• 200 g morcilla de Burgos, rice and blood sausage, added whole in the last 30 minutes
• 200 g chorizo
• 150 g jamón
• 400 g cooked chickpeas, drained
• For the sofrito
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 400 g tomatoes, peeled and chopped, or good tinned
• 2 tsp pimentón, sweet or hot, to taste
• For the aromatics
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 head of garlic, whole, unpeeled
• salt, added only at the very end

Method

1. 1
   Blanch the tripe in a large pot of boiling water for 10 minutes. Drain, rinse under cold running water, and clean thoroughly, removing any residual membrane or odour. Cut into 4–5 cm pieces. The tripe is sufficiently clean when it is pale, odour-neutral, and uniform in texture.
2. 2
   Place the cleaned tripe, trotters, and snout in a large pot. Cover with cold water. Add the whole head of garlic and bay leaf. Bring to a simmer and cook for 2 hours over low heat. The tripe is ready when it yields without resistance to a knife and has lost all rubberiness — silky under the fingertip, not springy.
3. 3
   While the tripe cooks, prepare the sofrito. In a heavy pan, soften the chopped onion over medium heat until translucent and beginning to colour at the edges. Add the garlic and cook for two minutes more. Add the pimentón and stir immediately so it blooms in the fat without scorching — the pan should smell deep and smoky, not acrid. Add the tomatoes and cook until the sofrito is thick, jammy, and the fat separates visibly at the edges of the pan.
4. 4
   Drain the cooked tripe, trotters, and snout, reserving the cooking liquor. Pick the meat from the trotters and snout and return it to the pot with the tripe. Add the sofrito, chorizo, jamón, chickpeas, and enough reserved cooking liquor to cover. This is where the dish lives or dies: the balance of cured-meat richness, pimentón depth, and the gelatinous body from the trotters must be established here — too little liquor and the stew scorches; too much and it never thickens. Cook over low heat for a further 1–2 hours, stirring occasionally, until the sauce is thick, deeply coloured, and coats the back of a spoon.
5. 5
   Thirty minutes before serving, add the morcilla de Burgos whole. Allow it to cook gently so that it partially dissolves into the sauce, thickening and enriching it. The sauce should take on a darker, more opaque tone and a noticeable increase in body — stir carefully to encourage even dissolution without breaking the sausage apart entirely.
6. 6
   Season with salt only at this final stage, tasting carefully — the chorizo, jamón, and morcilla will have released significant salt throughout the long cook. Adjust once only. Serve in warmed terracotta dishes with crusty bread alongside.