Could you expand on how you stew and simi-dry the tripe?
Interested
There are lots of places that sell this kind of thing in China, so I buy it stewed and semi-dried, haha!
However, generally you would take a bunch of (preferably whole) spices, toss them in a wok or stew pot with a bunch of water, and simmer your whole tripe in them for however long it takes - I'd guess somewhere in the neighborhood of an hour - then I believe you'd hang the tripe in the sun to dry for a few days, but you could probably use it right away or maybe even freeze it if you didn't want to hang it out for a while.
Spices vary: almost always star anise, dried red peppers, and bay leaves, often fennel seed, Sichuan pepper, cassia (like cinnamon but woodier and more subdued), and dried galangal or ginger, sometimes dried cardamom pods, 草果 (Amomum Tsaoko is the only translation I can find for these), cumin seeds, cloves, and whatever else you can imagine. Here in central China, similar spice mixes are used for stewing then frying crawfish, often with cucumbers or potatoes added late in the stewing step so they can soak up some of the flavor as well, and it's absolutely killer.
Since whole spices are typically pretty pricey in the US, I'm not sure if making your own tripe this way is manageable or if it would be cost prohibitive there, but I think you could save the stewing mixture in a Ziploc freezer bag and use it again a few times to ease some of the pain if the initial expense is a bit steep. You'd probably find the best deals on Amazon or in your nearest Chinatown.