Skirts and kidneys

Skirts and Kidneys is an Irish stew made from pork and pork kidneys.

History

Cork, on the southern coast of Ireland, has a long-standing association with animal produce and, from the 17th C to the end of the 19th C, was a major supplier of butter and salted (preserved) beef and pork to the British Empire and specifically the armed forces. The beef and pork industry meant a plentiful supply of offal offcuts were available at affordable prices for local consumption by the poor and underprivileged. An entire Cork cuisine developed based on offal - particularly pig offal. Examples include crubeens (pigs trotters); pigs tail; drisheen - a boiled blood sausage traditionally served with tripe; bodice - plain or salted pig ribs, cooked as a simple white stew, or as a salted bacon dish cooked with cabbage and turnip. It is a fact that, in Cork, the word offal had been commandeered to mean one specific dish - pigs backbone. Now sadly illegal to use because of scares with BSE, it was cooked either salted or as a white stew.

Skirts And Kidneys is probably the best of these dishes. The meat ingredients are readily bought in any Cork pork butcher's shop. Skirts are the trimmings from the inside of the ribs and backbone. While the meat is thin, it is quite tender as it formed part of little-used muscle in the animal. It is encased in a tough white membrane which needs to be stripped off before cooking. Kidneys need to be carefully washed in copious amounts of fresh water to ensure that all traces of their original function are washed away.

The dish is a basic white stew made with minimum ingredients: Skirts, kidneys, onions, thyme, salt, white pepper, water, and potatoes. All the ingredients are placed in a large saucepan of boiling water and slowly simmered for about two hours. At the end of cooking, if necessary, a little cornflour (cornstarch) mixed with a little water can be stirred in as thickening.

The meal is best served with crusty white bread to soak up the juices.

Recipe

(Serves 3-4):1 kg of pork skirts.
1 or 2 pork kidneys.
2 large white onions.
1 tablespoon of thyme (fresh or dried).
2 teaspoons of salt.
half a teaspoon of white ground pepper.
9-10 medium sized potatoes, peeled.

Method:
Chop the kidneys in quarter-inch slices. (Optionally, remove the white central core from each slice).Place the sliced kidney in a colander and rinse thoroughly under clean running water.

Meanwhile trim the pork skirts, removing the white membrane as thoroughly as possible.Slice the meat into bite-sized pieces.

Halve the onions and slice into half rings.Pluck to thyme from the branches (or open the container if using dried thyme!!)

Put the kidneys, skirts, onions and thyme, salt and pepper in a large pan.Cover with boiling water (about 2 pints / 1 Litre).

Bring to the boil and skim off any scum that rises to the surface.

Then cover and simmer over a low heat for 1 hour.

Wash and peel the potatoes while the dish is simmering.
After the hour, add the potatoes to the stew and cook for a further 45 minutes until the potatoes are cooked.

Check the juice for seasoning. Add more salt if necessary. (This dish does require quite a lot of salt).The potatoes should have thickened the stew sufficiently. If not, use a teaspoon of cornflour blended with a couple of teaspoons of cold water and stir it into the stew and boil gently until thickened.

Serve each portion in a deep dish like a pasta dish or large soup dish.Eat with crusty bread.