People who don’t eat offal will never understand the joys of batchoy soup. Flavored with chilies, ginger, garlic and shallots, the Filipino batchoy soup is cooked with pork blood, liver, tenderloin, spleen and kidneys.
The best batchoy soup I have ever tasted is Genia’s batchoy. And it took many, many visits to Genia’s to deconstruct her recipe. I think I got it.
I suggest that you let the butcher clean the kidneys for you to efficiently scrape the inedible centers.
Trim all visible fat from the tenderloin and spleen before cutting.
Batchoy soup
Ingredients
- batchoy consists of pork lomo, lapay and bato (pork tenderloin, spleen and kidneys), thinly sliced then cut into thin strips
- 200 grams pork liver thinly sliced and cut into thin strips
- 2 shallots finely sliced
- 6 cloves garlic finely minced
- 2 thumb-sized pieces ginger peeled and julienned
- 3 to 4 finger chilies each cut into two pieces
- 2 to 3 cups bone broth preferably homemade
- 2 cups fresh pork blood
- 3 tablesoons cooking oil
- patis (fish sauce) to taste
- ground black pepper optional
- 1 large handful sili (chili) leaves
Instructions
- Heat the cooking oil in a pot. Saute the ginger until fragrant. Add the pork tenderloin, spleen and kidney. Cook until the meat changes color. Add the garlic and shallots. Continue sautéing until the shallot slices appear translucent.
- Pour in the broth. Season with fish sauce. Bring to the boil. Lower the heat, cover and simmer for 15 to 30 minutes.
- Add the pork liver. Pour in the pork blood. Bring to the boil. Add more fish sauce, if needed. If using pepper, add it now. Lower the heat, cover and simmer for another 10 minutes.
- Turn off the heat. Add the sili leaves, pressing them down into the broth. Cover and leave to wilt the leaves for a few minutes.
- Serve the batchoy soup hot.