* 2 lb. Beef tripe (rumen and honeycomb tripe)
* Water, as needed
* 1 Calf's foot
* 1 medium head garlic
* 2 whole serrano chiles, or your favorite green chilies
* 1 medium onion
* Dry bay leaves 3
* 2 lb. canned hominy
* 1 bunch cilantro
* Salt to taste
* 2 onions
* Lemons

Preparation:

1) Clean perfectly the tripe by scraping it with a knife to remove excess fat and other impurities (those can be mainly chemicals used to clean it at slaughterhouse).

2) Once the tripe is very clean, cut them up into roughly 1 inch squares and place them in the pot you will cook your menudo in, along with the calf's foot. Pour water to fill the pot, place an onion, chiles, garlic and bay leaves. Turn the stove to boil water. Once boiling lower the heat setting, just enough to keep it simmering. Depending on the texture of the tripe and quantity, this can take from 4 to 6 hours and maybe even longer. When finished cooking the tripe will be tender.

3) Please note that as a foam accumulates on top while cooking menudo, you can spoon it off as it often is fatty and not helping the recipe. Be careful not to let all the water evaporate, and when you need to add more water, boil it before pouring it over to avoid stopping the cooking process and prevent the tripe from becoming hard.

4) Remove the garlic, onions, calf's foot, chili and cilantro and season the stew with salt to taste. Remove and chop the meat from the calf's foot and discard the bones; put the meat back to the menudo preparation. If the broth's taste is too bland for your liking (this can happen due to the type of tripe and bone used), add beef broth cubes to it.

If using uncooked hominy, it can be cooked separately while the tripe cooks, to avoid lengthening the time preparing this recipe will take. For simplicity use canned hominy, this is precooked and with this you only have 20 to 25 minutes cooking before the menudo is ready.

5) Chop green onion tails, clean the radishes, cilantro and your favorite chile, whether it being habanero, jalapeno, chiltepín, etc.

Serve the menudo in a nice mexican clay bowl often and top with the onion, chiles and chopped cilantro to taste. Serve with the menudo with tostadas and lemons...