I used to work at an in-house call center for a health care company before and everytime our US counterparts visit us, we never fail to introduce them to Filipino cuisine. We will tell them about adobo and tinola and halo-halo and so much more. And on their first day in the country, we give them the balut eating challenge.
What is a Balut?
If you will just look at it, it will seem to be nothing more than just hard boiled eggs. And they are indeed hard boiled eggs but with an umph factor. Balut is duck eggs cooked when they were not yet fully developed. The duck eggs are incubated a little bit longer, about 1-3 weeks, before they are steamed or boiled.
These are usually sold at night by Balut vendors yelling "Balut!!!" in their deep loud barritone voices. One might say that balut vendors may be good singers. They roam around the neighborhood with their basket covered with thick cloth, full of steaming hot balut. They would serve you the balut in a plastic bag with a packet of salt and another packet of spicy vinegar. The town next to where I live in is the Balut Capital of the Philippines - Pateros. And balut is available there anytime of the day. 😋
How to Eat Balut
Warning: The following content may not be for the faint of heart. Please proceed with caution. LOL
If you're not into eating exotic food, please do not scroll any further.
There are 4 delicious things inside a balut. The liquid, the yolk, the chick, and the hard white part. When I was young, I would give the chick part either to my brothers or to my father. But you haven't really eaten a balut unless you devoured everithing inside that shell.
The first thing you'd want to do is to crack the egg open. Just like you do on a normal egg. The only different thing is you would want to put the egg against the light first to see where the darker end is. Do not crack open on the dark side, choose the opposite.
Not yet that weird, eh? Go on ahead and open the shell. But you might want to do this very carefully. You do not want to spill the liquid out. Open the egg so that you could drink up the liquid. I prefer putting in salt in it before I gulp.
The egg I got still hasn't ruptured the inner layer which is good. I get to enjoy every drop.
Continue opening up the shell still very slowly. There might still be some more liquid in the gaps. Drink up whenever you see it.
Once you opened the egg almost fully, you should now see the other parts. You should see the yolk and/or the chick inside. The one I got most probably was incubated for just a short period of time, maybe less than 7 days. According to the folks here where I live in, they usually incubate the eggs for 2 weeks.
If the egg was incubated longer than that, you should see an almost fully developed duckling. You'll easily recognize the parts and it sometimes will have some tiny feathers. I prefer my balut featherless so I really liked what I had.
You may dip the entire thing in the spicy vinegar or you may just sprinkle some salt. I used to only have salt with my balut but after tasting the combination of vinegar with the liquid in the egg, I now prefer the sour and salty feeling in the tastebuds.
I prefer eating the chick first, then the hard white part which other people just throw, and lastly, the yolk. I like to save the best for last always. For me that't the yummiest part.
Balut is rich in protein and it contains 188 calories per serving according to this article. Ypu might want to make sure you don't eat a lot. I am trying to limit my calorie intake since I am trying to get in good shape but when there's balut right in front of you, you will really lose control. My parents used to say I shouldn't have more than 3 baluts per day. But I devoured 5 eggs. I am even salivating as I am writing this. 😋🥚🥚🥚🥚🥚
This is best served with beer. But since I've put my beer chugging days behind, I just contented myself with a glass of water and a few sips from the spicy vinegar.