Scholar's congee, with the pork offal

Ingredientsserves 4

Equipment

• A big pot and a sharp knife
• A garlic clove or a chopstick, for cleaning the intestine

How the time splits

1. 40 minCleaning the offal — the intestine, the kidney's core. This is the real workhands on
2. 5 minRinse the rice and start the pothands on
3. 55 minThe base simmers downhands off
4. 5 minAt a hard boil, the offal goes in in two goeshands on

Method

1. Clean the offal first; it is where the work in this bowl actually is. Split the kidney and cut out every trace of the white core — leave a little and it will taste of it, and nothing after that will fix it. Score the surface in a lattice without cutting through, slice, and soak in water.
2. Push a garlic clove or a chopstick into one end of the intestine and run it the whole way down to press the contents out, then rinse it under running water. Cleaned badly, it turns bitter.
3. Slice the liver thin and toss it in cornflour. That is what stops it bleeding into the congee and keeps the bowl clear rather than muddy.
4. Rinse the rice and mix it with the salt and a few drops of oil. Bring 1.8 litres of water to the boil, add the rice and the beancurd stick, and simmer on low for fifty-five minutes until the grains burst and the congee goes creamy.
5. Bring it to a hard boil. Add the ginger and garlic, then the lean pork and the intestine, and only a minute later the liver and the kidney. The liver is done the moment it changes colour — no longer.
6. Season with salt and white pepper. Coriander and spring onion at the bowl, and the fried dough stick cut over the top.

Take care

• Pork offal. The intestine must be cooked right through and the liver taken just past colour but never left pink. Buy it and cook it the same day; chill leftovers quickly and finish them that day. If you are pregnant, pig's liver is very high in vitamin A and this is a bowl to ask a doctor about first.

The story

It was called 雜底 once — the pig's odds and ends. A congee shop could hardly write offal on a menu, so it borrowed 及第, passing the imperial examination, and a cheap bowl became a lucky one. The story goes that 倫文敘 was fed daily by a congee seller when his family had nothing, came back a 狀元, and gave the bowl its name. It belongs to the congee shop rather than the home, because the shop had fresh offal every morning and a flat did not. Australia turns out to have it — a Chinese butcher carries the lot, it is only a further trip. The real work in the bowl is not the simmering but the washing, and whether those forty minutes were done properly is something you taste at the first spoonful.

Same kind

Century egg and salted-pork congeeFish-slice congee, cooked in the pourBoat congee, with everything in the bowl

Lo Fo Tong is cultural food-heritage reference, not medical advice. If you are pregnant, unwell or on medication, talk to your doctor or registered practitioner before changing what is in the pot.