I reverse-engineered Campbell's Pepper Pot soup
I loved Campbell's Pepper Pot soup, that and Scotch Broth were the best ones they ever made. It was discontinued quite a few years ago and I recently decided to try to figure out how to make it.
Ingredients were (from the ONE photo of the label showing ingredients that I am now able to locate on the interwebs): Beef Tripe Stock, Cooked Beef Tripe, Beef Stock, Potatoes, Water, Tomatoes, Enriched Macaroni Product (these were like fatter, dense ditalini, almost a little dumpling), Carrots, Wheat Flour, Salt, Lard, Sweet Peppers, Vegetable Oil, Yeast Extract, [illegible mono something gluten something], Beef Fat, Spice (I think thats what it says), Spice(?) Extract, Caramel Color, Dehydrated Parsley, Dextrose and Citric Acid.
I used blanket (smooth) tripe and I'm virtually certain that's the kind that was in the Campbell's version. You can get it at any carneceria. I cooked a couple of pounds of it from a frozen block, straight from the freezer, in my instant pot for 45 minutes on high with a chopped onion, a couple of chopped carrots, a tblsp of tomato paste, a spoonful of beef stock base, one rasher of bacon (I didn't have lard) and a small chopped potato which completely disappeared, water probably about 3 cups. I let the instant pot cool off naturally till I could open it up and the tripe was perfect. I took out the tripe and stuck it in the fridge while I finished the soup on the stove. I added another potato in small dice, one whole clove, a little marjoram and thyme (a small amount not more than 1/4 tsp each), a whole chopped red sweet bell pepper, chopped parsley, and added about 1/4 cup of small pasta. I used fregola sarda which is little round nuggets of pasta, it worked well. I also think large pearl couscous is sort of similar to the little dumpling pasta in the Campbells version and would also work well. Finally, I thickened it with a little flour slurry. Not too thick, just a tablespoon or so of AP flour in some water, to the liter of stock I end up with. I added a scant tsp of sugar and a good squirt of lemon juice, based on the ingredients list above ("dextrose" and "citric acid"). And I cut the tripe up in little squares with a knife and put it back in the soup.
It's not exactly the same but it came pretty close to my memory of the canned version. I theorize that clove is in the original, it's a common ingredient in Pepper Pot soup recipes I've seen. But JUST ONE, because I only want a hint, barely. And I also use some black pepper.