What it is
Sesame oil pork kidney (麻油腰子) is sliced pig kidney finished in a fragrant broth of sesame oil, old ginger and rice wine. Scored kidney is called 腰花, "kidney flowers", so the dish is often sold as 麻油腰花. The meat should be crisp and tender. Taiwanese eat it in cold weather and during the month after giving birth.
Where it came from
The dish belongs to the family of Taiwanese sesame oil cooking led by sesame oil chicken (麻油雞), the standard food of the postpartum month (坐月子). A Tang dynasty food-therapy book, the Shiliao Bencao (食療本草), already recommended chicken cooked with sesame oil and wine to build up new mothers. Kidney, chicken and similar versions all start from the same base of old ginger fried in sesame oil. In Taiwan they serve both as confinement food and as a winter tonic (進補). When the first cold air mass of the season arrives, queues form outside shops that sell them.
How it is made
The kidney must be very fresh and well cleaned, or it smells strongly. It is cut into large scored pieces, rinsed under running water until no blood comes out, blanched until it changes colour and chilled with ice. Old ginger is fried in sesame oil until browned. Rice wine goes in with a little rock sugar and salt and is brought to the boil. The kidney is added last, and the pan comes off the heat as soon as the liquid boils again, since kidney toughens with longer cooking. Rice wine does not fully cook off, so some alcohol remains.
How to eat it
Eat it hot, with its broth. Stirring the broth into thin wheat noodles (麵線) turns it into a meal. Traditional Chinese medicine classes sesame oil dishes as heating tonics, unsuited to people who run hot or have a cold or inflammation. Because some alcohol stays in the broth, dietitians suggest that people who handle alcohol poorly eat the kidney and leave the soup.
Around Taiwan
- Tainan
- Jin Fu (進福炒鱔魚專家), on Fuqian Road since 1972, lists sesame oil kidney (written 麻油腰只) among its three signature dishes, with stir-fried eel and a live-fish dish.
