# Would you eat it?



## sbd (Aug 18, 2006)

So I'm going to a cooking class tomorrow in the hills of Northern Vietnam. We go to the markets first to stock up, then back to a dodgy kitchen to cook up a storm. One of the items on the menu is local (pig?) blood sausage.

Would you eat it?


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## sbd (Aug 18, 2006)

I'm an old hand with black pudding, and love it. Not sure how safe the local version would be though - food safe is not really a concept here. Said dodgy kitchen is like a Punchbowl portaloo, only dirtier.

It is/will be cooked though. I haven't got sick yet, after a week of entrails and oddities. My girls wouldn't let me eat the puppy though.


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## RhubarbTheYeti (Oct 28, 2013)

sbd said:


> My girls wouldn't let me eat the puppy though.


    
Onya girls, puppies should be tickled not chewed on


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## avayak (May 23, 2007)

I reckon would be OK to eat it Dave. Pigs are a common and valuable food in Asia. I would think they would be handled well. Handled better than the boaties at Longy on Friday leaving two hoodies and a jew lying in the sun for the time I landed, packed and left.


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## sbd (Aug 18, 2006)

Right then, all preconceptions shattered.

Tour of the markets in the morning, all animals slaughtered this morning, and laid out in their gory glory. We got chicken, pork, buffalo & salted fresh pork blood, as well as some fresh intestines. Bags of fresh vegies and herbs as well.

Back to the restaurant, and to my huge surprise possibly the cleanest kitchen in Vietnam. We prepared buffalo for smoking, and stuck it in the chimney for the start of 5 days smoking (we used the product from a previous class for our lunch). New boards & knives to chop chicken, then again for large amounts of chilli, lemongrass, garlic & shallots. Then onto the blood sausage. About 500ml of pig's blood, mixed with pork mince, herbs and spices, then precongealed into a light jelly with hot water. After 15 mins, we tied intestines onto a water bottle funnel, and filled about 50cm of intestine with the mix, then tied off and poached for about 20 mins in simmering water.

Then we made a kind of tofu, but from soybean flour (not soymilk as I've done before), mixed up in water, thickened with cornflour, simmered until clotted then strained. We stir fried the curd with choko leaves to finish the dish.

Then we separately fried the chicken with ginger, boiled the buffalo "biltong" and sliced and fried it with pickled chard. Finally after about three hours, we got to consume the fruits of our labours, with rocketfuel rice wine and corn wine.

All up, probably the high point of our trip, and easily worth the $60 we paid. I left our guide Khai a big tip, he was friendly, helpful and interested in our food back home too. He did say not to eat the premade black pudding I'd seen in the market the day before, and after making our own, I'll be happy not to.


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