slaughter of a cow

For the first time I bought into a 1/4 cow though my friend Marc. It is a grass and grain fed cow from a small family farm near Scappoose, Oregon. A few days ago I went out there on the day of the slaughtering.

I arrived at 8 am wanting to see the process. When I arrive I could only see in the distance the farm owner Rick was operating a tractor. I at the mean time were afraid to get out of my vehicle because of the big dog (in the picture below) treating me as a stranger to the property. I gathered that he used the tractor to drag the cow to the butchering area after it was killed.

Bill's mobile slaughtering house

the next step after chopping off the hocks is to remove the hide - Bill and his helper skinning the cows

here is a short clips of the video i took

Not knowing what to expect I told Bill what I want. I want the heart, tongue, tail, spleen, tripe, and some small intestine. Seeing I am from the city Bill taunt me where is my knife? I told him I didn't bring one and he remarked that I came to a knife fight without bring a knife. He threw a sharp knife that landed on the stomach signaling me to do it myself. I knew he just want to see what I would do.

I proceed to cut out the spleen like a pro. Bill was impressed!
Bill's knife landed on the first stomach of the pile of gut of one cow

When it comes the tripe I had no idea what to do. Sorry for me Bill came over and help. He slitted open the stomach to spill out the pile of grass. I then see the inside of the stomach. I recognized the common blanket trip and a small area of honeycomb trip.
here is the pile of partly digested grass from the first stomach

Bill then told me the second stomach also contain tripe and it is the most prized one. He was wrong however as honeycomb tripe is preferred and it is from the first. I cut it open and see the countless number of compartments. I tired to remove the grass but the thin book tripe (in the second stomach) rips very easily. Knowing I would bring home two first stomach I decided to pass on the second stomach.
You can see the food matter is processed more and more as it pass though the cow's digestive system.
see the difference of the grass in the second stomach- it is noticeably more digested

Neither did I know what to do to cut out the small intestine. Again Bill came over and cut out a good length. He squeezed out the content by pulling it between the fingers. I have to tell him to stop least I end up with more intestine than I could handle. I couldn't take many photos because I had to hurry to get what I want. Bill and his helper was not there that long for the entire process. Only an hour and they are done and left.
the mobile slaughtering house has everything - that is Bill

 i came home with 3 garbage bags of cow innards and 2 tongues and 2 tails

I didn't come home with the meat of the 1/4 cow or the bones. The butcher keep the cow in a refrigerator to drain the blood and age the meat for a few weeks before the cow is divided into different cuts. Before I left Rich the farm owner show me around a bit and I saw some other cows of his.

Coming home I had my work cut out for me. It would be until 6 pm that I have all the stuff in the freezer and some for cooking immediately.
good thing I have a real cleaver and a butcher's knife (it actually is a fish boning knife)

two ox tails i trimmed off the fat; chopping them into pieces required a very determined swing of a heavy cleaver

I am thankful to have a backyard to do this messy business; also the tree log served as a butcher block for chopping up the ox tails and doing all the trimming of fat from the organs. I use the garden hose to wash off the partly digested grass in the stomach on my grass lawn. I was tidy not to leave bits of fat on the lawn to attract rats. As I work the damn crows are crowing on the trees. I am sure they would love to have some of it.

 here is the first stomach of one cow and i brought home two

 i cut out the honeycomb tripe

 it was a lot of work to trim off the fat (on the outer side of the stomach)

 i put them in large freezer bags

 here is the second tub of tripe and some intestine

trimming off the fat of the tripe - i could not help but to think of the supermarket cookies (they use tallow before they demonized it and replace it with something may be worst) and McDonald French fries

there is preciously little honeycomb trip - here is all that is from one stomach

there is a lot of fat on the outside of the intestine and it requires some knife skill to remove them without rupturing the easily damaged intestine lining

Handling the intestine make me appreciate how delicate it is; and yet we put in all sort of garbage into our bodies.
I ended up with almost 2 bucket full of fat trimmed from the organs.

i nearly gave up cleaning all the intestine as it was a lot of work; after tasting the cooked pieces I was glad I stuck with it like a man

after cleaning the inside thoroughly I blanched them so i could freeze some

here is the cooked ox tail - i remove them from the broth so i could cook other innards in stages

 the blanched intestine ready to put into the broth for slow cooking

Figuring out how to process the green tripe is most difficult. There is very little information on the web. Some say use baking soda and some use lemon juice. I tried baking soda and it didn't work well and I was afraid it would tenderize the delicate thin skins of the honeycomb tripe. I ended trying boiling them in a diluted (food grade) citric acid and salt. I would later learnt that salt solution would work. I also learnt later the other trick is to soak the boiled trip in water overnight to loosen the black grids.

here you see the black grids are loosen - but it was still a chore to scrape them off the delicate compartments

here are the sink full of black grids

 i used a the back side and tip of the clam knife to scrape the black grid off

For all these messy work I did I think I deserved to be inducted into home cook hall of fame. I figured out how to process green trip and intestine. I cooked the tripe, intestine, and spleen all with my intuitions and some quick research. It was a lot of pressure to get everything into the freezer before they begin to spoil.
I made enough of the cow offal, broth, and meat for meals over a week.
here is a bowl of beef soup noodle I made; you can read more on this other post