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October 20, 2011Pork Blood Pho: Is it True or New?This is my typical bowl of homemade beef pho noodle soup. I can’t imagine eating it with cubes of congealed pork blood. But maybe that is something going on these says.
Have you heard of or eaten pho with pork blood? During the past several weeks I’ve read about it twice, most recently in The Globe and Mail, a newspaper from Toronto, Canada. In “You eat meat, so why not blood? Chefs strive to warm up diners to the red stuff,” journalist Chris Nuttall-Smith reports on uses of blood in hip, modern food. The article was focused on Western chefs, such as Rene Redzepi of Copenhagen's famed Noma, who marinates vegetables in blood according to photos he posted.
I was looking for mention of blood-laden Asian foods, expecting to see classics like Filipino dinuguan blood stew and Korean sundae (not a dessert). Instead, my eyes nearly popped out of their sockets when I read the last three words of this paragraph:
To be sure, this is nothing new to most Europeans – from black pudding to morcilla to Poland’s duck blood soup, the continent has almost too many blood recipes to count. Blood dishes are also common across South and Central America, Africa and most of Asia; you can find blood tofu in many Chinese grocery stores in Canada; some Vietnamese restaurants also offer pork blood pho.Whoa! I have not seen pork blood in pho before and wondered if it was a new Canadian thing.
Over the years, some Vietnamese cooks have taken to adding cubes of congealed pork blood (huyet or tiet) to brothy noodle soups, such as bun bo Hue (spicy beef and pork noodle soup), bun rieu cua (a crab-based noodle soup), and bun oc (round rice noodles with snails). The addition of the pork blood lends extra nutrients and texture (it’s kinda like minerally-tasting jello). Vietnam is a protein-poor country with a large population. It makes sense to apply that kind of head-to-tail-and-gut rigor to cooking.
Do note that the old school preparations of the three noodle soups described above do not include blood. In fact, my mom once ordered a bowl of bun bo Hue at a Hue restaurant in Little Saigon. When the bowl arrived and she saw the huyet blood cubes in there, she pointed to the blood and asked the waiter, “What is this? It does not belong there.” (Don’t mess with my mom.)
He sheepishly responded, “It’s what people want now so we have to make it that way.”
That said, the Vietnamese practice of adding the pork blood to noodle soups has not [yet] spread to pho. But has it? If you’ve had menu sightings or tasted pork blood pho, please let us know.
Nuttall-Smith may have mistaken pork blood pho with bun bo Hue. It’s hard to tell because there is no detailed description of the dish in the article. Many pho restaurants offer bun bo Hue but the former is delicate and nuanced while the later is spicy rustic, making more simpatico with the blood.
Other bloody Viet fare
In case you wonder, the Viet repertoire includes some bloody good dishes. My favorite is Vietnamese blood sausage (doi or doi huyet), which includes fresh herbs to cut some of the richness of the blood. The Ravenous Couple blog has a Vietnamese blood sausage recipe here. Vietnamese blood sausage is terrific grilled or fried and enjoyed as a nosh with herbs such as Thai basil and mint.
There’s also Vietnamese blood soup, tiet canh, typically made of slightly congealed duck blood. I’ve not eaten that dish because I’m not keen on the metallic and minerally quality of pure, raw blood and a few garnishes. The blood can be mixed with the cooked meat of the animal and that seems a bit more appealing.
Here's an eating tip: If you’re averse to the notion of eating blood in Viet food, look for “huyet” or “tiet” on a menu or street vendor’s signage. Avoid those foods or order your food without it.
Overall, don’t get grossed out. If blood is mixed with other things or used with a light hand, it’s barely noticeable. A great example is the Taiwanese street snack of sticky rice with blood and peanuts. My friend Sara Lin introduced me to it last year in Taipei. It was delicious. Scroll down this page for a photo of it. You won’t turn into a vampire.
Have you prepared or eaten food prepared with blood before? How did you like it? Or, what is your general take on dishes made with blood? And, if you know about pork blood pho, chime in!
Related posts and sites
My Beef Pho Noodle Soup recipe Ravenous Couple’s Vietnamese blood sausage recipe Gastronomy Blog’s post on chao long in VietnamNoodle Pie’s post on tiet canh blood soup in VietnamKorean blog's lowdown on sundae blood sausageCasa Veneracion's pork dinuguan recipePosted in Asian Food Culture, Asian Ingredients, Viet Food in Media | PermalinkReblog (0) | | Digg This | | Comments
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In Australia there are plenty of Vietnamese eateries with blog in their pho on the famous Victoria St. It seems the norm.
Posted by:Ed |October 20, 2011 at 05:25 PMTrue Malaysian Curry Mee (noodles) has pigs blood cubes and cockles in it. Along with chicken meat and other bits and bobs. When we make that here in Canada, we must go hunting for steamed/cooked pigs blood. I do draw the line at cockles, though since peeling cockles are a real pain but my dad insists, for authenticity.
Mum also makes a dish of pigs blood and chives (sauteed with some shallots and garlic). I am sure this is a chinese style preparation.
I also have a perchant for black pudding (english blood sausage) so I guess I really like pigs blood, despite the metallic taste. I try not to think to hard about it.
Posted by:Diane |October 20, 2011 at 06:28 PM
The first time I ate real pho in a Vietnamese restaurant, my wife ordered the chicken pho because she thought it would be "safer" (no offal). It had these big dark red cubes in it, which by the taste and texture we assumed was some different variety of tofu. After the meal we chatted with the chef, who informed us that it was in fact congealed chicken blood. He made it himself from scratch and was very proud of it. My wife now eats beef pho exclusively.
Posted by:ThaiCurious |October 20, 2011 at 06:51 PM
Hi Andrea,
My bf loves blood cubes for its texture, but I don't know how to cook it. I was ready to cook it with his favorite noodle soup, bun rieu, but I chickened out. Also, I didn't find any blogs or recipes on how to cook blood cubes. Can you help me out? My parents don't cook it--they only eat it at restaurants in bun bo hue or bue rieu. Thanks!
Posted by:Tuyet N. |October 20, 2011 at 07:20 PM@Ed: That's so interesting. My time in Melbourne was but a few days and I went to Victoria Place but alas, I didn't get pho there. I got a Southern Viet snack of banh khot. It was a nice street to visit.
Posted by:Andrea Nguyen |October 20, 2011 at 08:44 PM@Diane: There are those blood cockles... Picking out the flesh of cockles is definitely a group activity! Thanks for sharing your love of blood-laden dishes.
Posted by:Andrea Nguyen |October 20, 2011 at 08:48 PM@ThaiCurious: How very interesting. That's a resourceful cook for you. I bet that he killed the chicken too. That bowl of chicken pho must have been quite good -- the broth and all.
Posted by:Andrea Nguyen |October 20, 2011 at 08:49 PM@Tuyet: Like your parents, I'm not a major blood cooker. (Sounds weird to type that.) But with many recipes that I've seen, you just cut up the block of congealed pig blood (tiet lon, huyet lon) into smaller cubes and add it to your food -- like a garnish.
For noodle soups, I would warm the cubes up in the water that you reheat the noodles in. Otherwise, they'll be too hard in your food.
For rice soup (chao), just add the blood cubes to the pot of soup and warm it up. You want these types of foods to be at the same temp so warming is important. Hope your make your BF happier!
Posted by:Andrea Nguyen |October 20, 2011 at 09:03 PM
I really enjoy blood cubes!
Reading this blog actually rekindled a craving for bun oc with huyet in there.
Unfortunately i live in Perth, Australia and the vietnamese restaurants here don't serve bun oc, but i fell in love with bun oc when i went to vietnam a few years ago.
@Simon: Can you get bun oc in Cambramatta or Melbourne? Funny that it wouldn't be in Perth. Australia has so much terrific seafood that I bet there's a great local substitute for the escargot-like oc snail.
Per Mark Lowerson @StickyinHanoi on Twitter:
huyet only in pho ga and only if requested by customer
it's common for customers to request blood, hearts, giblets, tubes etc in their pho ga in addition to normal portion of chicken
Andrea, I've never yet seen any Pho on the East Coast being offered with blood, but I also might overlook that on a menu - I know what I like and I order only that. :-)
Even so... there are Viet households here were folks are great fans of blood, and I've not seen any of them putting blood cubes into Pho.
Posted by:Simon Bao |October 21, 2011 at 04:33 AM
Hi Andrea,
I don't have a blog but I always read ours.
In the Philippines we have dinuguan. we call it chocolate meat here in the US.
I have only seen huyet in bun bo hue or banh canh in Ho Chi Minh City, not in beef pho. I enjoy eating Korean sundae, a great snack food. I have had blood sausages in Vietnam but not sure what type of blood they used, but the meat itself was chon.
Posted by:Jen |October 21, 2011 at 09:43 AMSimon Bao -- Usually, the blood is suppose to match the meat in the dish (if there is meat, that is). That's the more high-class approach, I suppose. Pork blood in beef pho doesn't seem right.
However, I once spoke to a cook in Hanoi who admitted to combining pork and beef bones in her broth. She put no blood in there, though.
Posted by:Andrea Nguyen |October 21, 2011 at 11:40 AMLuc: I LOVE the fact that Filipinos refer to the congealed blood as "chocolate meat." It reflects lots of humor and playfulness.
Here's a tweet from Mari Uyehara (http://fedification.com)
@aqnguyen Thai dishes called nam tok (soup or meat) are typically made with blood. It means waterfall, a ref to pouring blood in, I'm told.
Posted by:Andrea Nguyen |October 21, 2011 at 11:44 AM@Jen: Typically, it's pork blood in the Viet doi huyet. Pig casings + pig blood is a resourceful way to use up the animal that you've harvested. It's a responsible way to eat.
Posted by:Andrea Nguyen |October 21, 2011 at 11:48 AM
i wasn't a fan of our filipino "dinuguan" until recently discovering my fix: now i buy it from take-out places but i add a LOT of vinegar and chopped pickled little green peppers called "labuyo". i eat it with a spongy steamed white bread called "puto".
i had a most delicious bean soup with lots of blood sausage slices at a spanish restaurant, Patio Español in san francisco .. it was a buffet but i could not get past the soup course!
Posted by:maluE |October 21, 2011 at 12:25 PMMaluE: What's Filipino food without vinegar??? :) Thanks for the tip on the bean and blood soup at Patio Espanol in San Fran.
Posted by:Andrea Nguyen |October 21, 2011 at 01:47 PMHehe, this topic hit home for me. I loves me some dinuguan but I'm not too fond of the restaurant versions. Most of my other Fil-Am friends strayed as far away from it as possible, I gobbled it up. Oddly, I've never really developed a taste for it in bun bo Hue. On the other hand, my Viet husband looooooves it in his bun bo Hue and will gladly take the cubes I pick out of mine but he won't come within a foot of dinuguan. HA!
Posted by:Michelle |October 21, 2011 at 04:58 PMI love that everyone is bringing up dinuguan. It was one of my favorite dishes growing up, and I was one of the few kids who didn't have to be tricked with the "chocolate meat" line. :)
Posted by:Jonathan |October 22, 2011 at 04:00 AM
Blood sausage is pretty common across the globe ... I eat the Estonian version at Christmas. Yum!
Posted by:Krista |October 22, 2011 at 08:53 PM
Actually I had no idea that bun rieu typically doesn't have the blood cubes because this is the way I've always had it since I was a kid! My mom and dad's family have each always made it this way. Actually my mom's recipe comes from her grandmother. I love it!
Posted by:Charlene |October 25, 2011 at 04:22 AMYes, There is a restaurant in Boston that my Vietnamese friend recommended that has this kind of Pho and my fiance ordered it. I have to say the blood didn't really do anything for me. I found it pretty tasteless and to me therefore seemed pointless. He liked it a lot and reminded him of a Colombian soup he grew up on.
Love your book and your blog!
hi, andrea:
yes, we filipinos do tend to bring sourness into our food - whether from vinegar, citrus, tamarind, guava, green mango, even tomatoes - probably to cut thru the grease in some of our dishes. .. i de-grease as much as possible and always have a bright citrusy side.
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