Balut!

interesting link here i found.

http://www.handsonkitchen.com/forum/poultry/balut-381/

I stopped by Hoa Nam Grocery (1101-3 W. Argyle) this afternoon and picked up a half-dozen balut (75 cents/).

In the course of getting the eggs, no less than three sales people/cashiers asked me, "You know what those are? Little ducks."

I asked about refrigeration, and the cashier said I didn't have to refrigerate them, but if they got warm, they'd hatch.

There was a guy there who was buying like 5-6 dozen. Now that's a fiesta.

I think mine will make good party favors for happy_stomach's Filipino dinner.

David "Do I Know How to Party or What?!" Hammond

Along the same lines, did you see Market Manila's post about day-old chicks on sticks? (scroll down)

d4v3 wrote:Along the same lines, did you see Market Manila's post about day-old chicks on sticks? (scroll down)

Thanks for the link -- this looks like an info-rich site.

Lemme ask a potentially stupid question here: was the cashier bulling me when she said if they were kept warm, they'd hatch? I mean, balut are boiled, right? Otherwise, how could they sit out, unrefrigerated, for so long?

FWIW the Wikipedia article on balut says:

In the United States, many Asian markets occasionally carry uncooked balut eggs, though their demand in North America is not very great. The cooking process is identical to that of hard-boiled chicken eggs, and baluts are enjoyed while still warm.

'

So, fire up the stock-pot, hat man!

Are we not men, we are balut:

http://lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?p= ... 41693be8df

So...were they pre-cooked? Yet another food to be curious about...

Mhays wrote:So...were they pre-cooked? Yet another food to be curious about...

They were fresh when I bought them, so happy_stomach boiled them for like 30 minutes. It's important, I think, to eat them warm from cooking so the liquor (which tasted a lot like shrimp broth) is still liquid.

I'm glad you got to try these.

i'm guessing the texture to be the hardest part for me to get over, although i have no idea what the texture is.

that and i really don't care poultry, although i love eggs, and the link i posted said it tasted like egg.

maybe one day i will get the chance to try them.

I couldn't believe it but there it was: a clamshell of balut right there amongst the tofu at Fresh Farms.

No, I didn't not have the eggs to try them.

I'd love to try this at some point, but I have this obsession with wanting to make sure my first try will be a good one. It's not something I want to be put off of by a bad first experience. But I'm not even sure how one goes about determining whether one's balut is good or not.

Amusing anecdote, they have stacks of them in the refrigerator case at one of the major Asian markets here in Phoenix, right next to regular duck eggs. A few months ago, I was perusing that case next to an elderly British couple who were discussing that it would be nice to fry up some duck eggs for breakfast. They selected the balut, which wasn't clearly marked. Tempting as it was to let it go, I said to them, "Uhhhhhh... I don't think that's what you think it is." When they asked what it was, I explained... and the look on their faces was kind of priceless. I directed them towards the unfertilized duck eggs and went on my way. Ten minutes later, halfway across the (huge) store, one of them flagged me down from the other end of an aisle, came shuffling over as fast as his late seventy-something legs would carry him, and asked if the eggs he had in his hands were regular duck eggs. I said yes. I was pretty sure they were. I hope they were. I'm not sure these two were prepared for the alternative.

Just bumping this thread since I added a bunch of new pictures, this time around it's Vietnamese style, done with a younger chicken egg. I personally prefer the chicken over the duck, plus younger is better.

Taste like super yummy chicken stock with a chicken in it.

Check out the link in the first post to see the updated pictures, it's at the bottom of that page.