Cork's oldest working-class food tradition, pairing cow's stomach lining (tripe) with drisheen, a Cork blood pudding made from sheep's blood and cream, set in a casing.

A 19th-century working-class staple from Cork's North Main Street butcher quarter, drisheen is a blood pudding made from a base of sheep's or cow's blood thickened with milk and oatmeal, sliced and pan-fried alongside boiled tripe. The dish was once sold from carts outside Cork's pubs and at the English Market; rural Munster cottages served it for breakfast. Katherine Fulvio and Darina Allen have championed its survival in print, and O'Reilly's stall at the English Market is now the principal preserver of the tradition, the last full-time drisheen counter in Ireland and producing several dozen kilograms a week.

Where to eat Tripe and Drisheen in Cork

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Make it at home

Serves 44 hrIntermediate

Ingredients

  • 600g honeycomb tripe, pre-cleaned
  • 400g Cork drisheen (from O'Reilly's at the English Market, or a Cork butcher)
  • 1L whole milk
  • 300ml double cream
  • 2 onions, finely sliced
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 10 black peppercorns
  • 1 clove
  • 50g unsalted butter
  • 1 tbsp plain flour
  • 1 tbsp finely chopped parsley
  • Sea salt, white pepper
  • Brown soda bread, to serve

Method

  1. Rinse tripe thoroughly. Place in a pot, cover with cold water, bring to a boil, drain. Repeat once more.
  2. Return tripe to the pot with the milk, half the cream, one onion, bay leaves, peppercorns, and clove. Simmer gently for 3 hours until very tender.
  3. Drain, reserving the cooking milk. Cut tripe into 2cm strips.
  4. Slice the drisheen into 1cm rounds.
  5. Melt butter in a wide pan. Soften the second onion 10 minutes until translucent. Stir in flour, cook 1 minute.
  6. Whisk in 500ml of the reserved milk and the remaining cream. Simmer to a coating sauce.
  7. Add the tripe and warm through 5 minutes. Slide in the drisheen rounds and warm gently another 5 minutes; do not stir vigorously or the drisheen will break.
  8. Season carefully. Scatter parsley. Serve in deep bowls with brown soda bread.

Editor tip. Drisheen is fragile; once added to the sauce, only swirl the pan rather than stir with a spoon.