BALUT – DARE YOU TRY?
“A Balut is a boiled fertilized duck embryo. It is ideally 17 days old, just as when the embryo starts to develop, before it becomes ready for consumption. Also at this point in time, the bulk of the egg is made of ‘yolk’ while the embryo, which would turn into cute little chick eventually, is simply nothing but a small lump covered with white albumen-like membrane. The balut should be boiled for about half an hour before it is eaten, similar to preparation of a hard-boiled egg.”
This is not the first time I have baluts (I have been tried duck balut and quail balut before) but the example I have today is also the first time I tasted: Chicken Balut! In Vietnam, we don’t have chicken Balut because we think it is quite small, not tasty like duck balut or quail one and somebody said that will cause poison inside?! Although I got balut before but whenever I have balut, I still feel shuddering inside.
Visually, chicken balut is plainly an egg, except that this one has feathery wings, premature beak, and a pair of brittle legs.. By not imagining too much on how it looks, eating balut is as easy as peeling its shell. As for the taste, it is at par with the regular hardboiled egg, even more flavorful indeed. Moreover, eating balut is an art. Each country has different ways to enjoy this unique dish. The art begins by cracking a small hole on its shell. Start peeling the shell from the crack. As I peeled, the amniotic fluid would eventually drip. I started drinking all the juice from the egg. The salty flavor of the amniotic fluid would remind me of your favorite entrée, and for that, I was getting the right appetite for the main course. I kept sipping through until there was not any of “juice” left. This is my most favorite step when eating balut. After that, I continue peeling the shell until the main course is finally revealed. Start with the yolk first; this was the yellowish part of the chunk. That is good with sprinkles of salt and pepper. The yolk tasted like any egg yolk and the texture is consistently soft. There was the hard egg white part which I really enjoyed chewing it. Last but not least, the chick! I guess I was lucky because this was a ideal balut which had a bit small chick and mostly covered by a thick white membrane. As usual, I felt a little bit giddy when going with chick part, so I used some Vietnamese mint (which we always use when eating balut in Southern style) to reduce the strong flavor of balut. After spooned out whole chick from the shell, I bite into the crunchy break of tiny bones from the chick which well combine with a bit chewy texture. Surprisingly, chicken balut tasted all the same but less flavor comparing with duck balut. It might because the chicken balut is smaller and quite “young”, the texture is more tender than original one.
Balut is not an egg, not a chick, it is something in between which make it is the unique in the unique dish ever to dare people to try. Moreover, this is a high protein dish with at some point have a health benefit for human body. I do enjoy eating balut sometimes but I still have the shuddering feeling whenever I eat it. Therefore I am thinking of another dish with these unique dishes. May be I will deep-fried it then deep in tamarind sauce with a little bit of chopped peanuts and crunchy fried slice shallot twisted in some Vietnamese mint. That will upgrade all the best flavor from balut and the deep-fried cover will make it look more tasty by eyes and even when eating it.
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