Skirts and kidneys

Skirts and kidneys is an Irish stew made from pork and pork kidneys. Cork, on the southern coast of Ireland, has a long-standing association with animal produce and, from the 17th century to the end of the 19th century, 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/cruibín (pigs' trotters); pigs' tails; 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. In Cork, the word offal came to mean one specific dish – pig's backbone. Now illegal to use because of BSE, it was cooked either salted or as a white stew. The meat ingredients for skirts and kidneys can be bought generally in any pork butcher's shop. Skirts are the trimmings from the around the diaphragm. While the meat is thin, it is quite tender. 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 urine are washed away.

Source: Wikipedia