Saturday, January 26, 2008

A Dying Dish - Pig's Organ Soup

Pig's organ soup is a dish that I've not had in a long time. Partly because it is hard to find a stall that prepares it well. I was at Tiong Bahru Market again and I decided to give Koh Brothers Pig's Organ Soup. Part of the reason why this dish is dying out is because many have given up eating offal here and the preparation of the various pig's organs that go into the soup is extremely consuming.
Here's a close-up of the piping hot but oh so tasty bowl of soup.Here are the parts of the pig that are in the soup - heart, stomach, intestines (large and small), liver, lean pork and meat balls. To provide the kick is salted mustard green, pepper in a great clear pork bone stock.
Here are slices of heart which is all muscle and quite nice to chew on. What is no longer found in the bowl no more are kidneys, tongue, cubes of blood cakes and soft stewed skin. I would have liked my bowl better if the stock was more full bodied, sour and salty.
The next time, I'm at Tiong Bahru I will also give their glutinous rice with chestnuts stuffed in intestine caul roll. This is another dying dish that is eaten with sweet sauce.
Just so that you know, only one of the two Koh brothers still cook, the other had retired. This gentleman is already in his late seventies. When I was there he was serving his customers while sitting on a bar stool. If you have the guts to eat this offal dish do so as it's hard to find a good bowl of soup these days.

2 comments:

Elyani said...

Shirls, in Jakarta there are a couple of places where people still selling "sekba" (pig's organ soup). I have never been a big fan for any animal organs except chicken liver, chicken gizard and chicken intestines. But my youngest brother loves this sekba soup. Perhaps that's why I get all the inner side problem in my tummy because I refuse to eat a lot things...hahaha!

Shirls said...

I guess. My peers hardly eat offal soup. I was a rather sickly child and my grandmother, mother and aunts always made liver, heart or kidney soup for me. In addition, its a family tradition that we have pig's stomach soup during Chinese new year.