Chinese Marinated Pork Kidney
Welcome to my new website! I finally migrated everything over to wordpress and am still in the process of tweaking and making sure everything is running smoothly for your viewing enjoyment. To celebrate this move, I present to you a childhood favorite of mine: Marinated Pork Kidney. 涼拌腰花 or Liang Ban Yao Hua (directly translated as Cold Marinated Kidney.)
In Asian cuisine, almost no edible part is off limits. Kidney is often thought of as a junk part in western cuisine, and only specialty dishes might call for it but hopefully after trying this one, you’ll have a newfound appreciation for it.
This particular dish was something my family would always, always order if we went to Joe’s Shanghai for soup dumplings (xiao long bao) and my memory of it will forever be fond. While my sister craved the cold pickled cucumbers, and my grandparents enjoyed the xiao rou (forgive me, a recipe for this will eventually be posted) this cold kidney dish was my kryptonite. The secret to making it really good is, of course, getting very fresh pork kidneys, not overcooking it (much in the way of liver, anything over just about done will result in a tough and rubbery texture and a pungent aroma), and making sure you wash it well. I rinse it three times. Once before slicing, once after slicing, once after cooking.
Recipe
- 3 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1 tablespoon sesame oil
- 1 teaspoon spicy chili paste
- 1 teaspoon ground szechuan pepper
- 2 stalk celery, sliced thin, diagonal
- 2 clove garlic minced
- 1 scallion, sliced
- 1/4 onion, thinly sliced
- 1 red bell pepper, thinly sliced
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- 6 tablespoons soy sauce
- 3 pork kidneys, washed, cored and thinly sliced
1. Combine soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, sugar, sesame oil, spicy chili paste, szechuan pepper, celery slices, minced garlic, scallions, onion, red bell pepper, and ginger together in a container.
2. Core (remove the white inner layer of the kidneys) and slice thinly. Wash under cold running water until water runs clear.
3. Quickly blanch the kidney slices in lightly salted boiling water, until just cooked through (this means you should be babying it and checking it constantly!)
4. Drain and wash under cold water again until water runs clear. Toss in sauce. Cover and allow to marinate in the fridge for at least 1 hour.
*Word of warning: the texture and flavor of the kidney will be drastically different if you cook it for even a minute too long!