Balut or Fetal Duck eggs or duck seeds is a dish made from duck eggs when the embryo has developed into shape. Fetal Duck eggs are one of the popular snacks in Vietnam … and are considered a nutritious dish.
By Thomas Vietnam at vemekong.com | All Best Foods & Restaurants in Can Tho
1. Better to Know as a Food Lover
Find them: Ninh Kieu District, Can Tho city.
Best time: Dusk-Dawn
Don’t miss: Laksa leaves, salt and pepper
Local’s pick: Tran Van Hoai Go Noodle soup restaurant
Tourist’s pick: To Nhu restaurant, Hien Hau restaurant, De Tham Street Eat Zone…
Blog: https://vemekong.com/balut-fetal-duck-egg-can-tho-food/
Facts: Fetal duck eggs are sold on the street, or at street corners, small food stalls. This dish is also popular in a number of other Asian countries such as China, Korea and Japan, the Philippines and Cambodia, although the preparation is slightly different.
2. Better to Know Fetal Duck Egg
Fetal duck eggs are a food with high nutritional value, helping to improve health, this is also a popular snack that is loved by many people.
In Oriental medicine, fetal duck eggs have the effect of cultivating yin, nourishing blood, benefiting the mind, and helping the body to grow. As for Western medicine, fetal duck eggs contain many high-value nutritional ingredients such as: protein, lipid, calcium, phosphorus, cholesterol, vitamins… This is a dish that contains a lot of healthy nutrients. However, how to eat and who should not eat, not everyone knows. Here are some notes when using duck eggs:
Do not eat in the evening
In one fetal duck egg, there are up to 182 kcal of energy, 13.6 grams of protein, 12.4 grams of lipids, 82 mg of calcium, 212 grams of phosphorus and 600 mg of cholesterol. In addition, there are a lot of beta carotene, vitamins of groups A, B, C, iron… Therefore, fetal duck eggs are considered as a remedy for blood and intelligence, helping the body to recover quickly. dress.
However, fetal duck eggs are difficult to digest due to their high protein and cholesterol content. Therefore, avoiding eating in the evening will cause discomfort, bloating, and harm to the digestive system. The most suitable time to eat this dish is in the morning, but do not eat too often and eat a lot at once.
Only eat 2 duck eggs per week
Children under 5 years old should not eat too many fetal duck eggs because their digestive systems are not yet fully developed, which can easily lead to bloating, digestive disorders, and bad health effects.
Children aged 5 years and older should only eat half a fruit at a time, 1-2 times a week is enough. Eating scrambled eggs regularly also causes excess vitamin A to cause yellowing of the skin, peeling of the epidermis, affecting the formation of bones, making children develop incompletely.
In addition, obese people, the elderly, patients with high blood pressure, diabetes, dyslipidemia, and heart disease also need to limit eating this dish. For healthy adults, it is best to eat only 2 fetal duck eggs per week.
Why should you eat it with ginger, laksa leaves?
Fetal duck eggs are often eaten with Ginger and laksa leaves. This is a harmonious combination that brings balance to the body with laksa leaves, ginger has a pungent taste, warm properties, a warming effect on the abdomen, anti-flatulence, antiseptic, and soldering iron. Therefore, they are effective against cold stomach, flatulence and slow digestion. The appropriate amount of seasoning for a maximum of two eggs at a time is about 5g of sliced fresh ginger, 5g of fresh laksa leaves. Note, for pregnant women, when eating duck eggs, they should not eat a lot of laksa leaves and ginger will cause heat and can cause miscarriage.
People with gout should not eat duck eggs. For those who use duck eggs to improve their long-term health, it is necessary to limit the intake of cattle and poultry livers… or take vitamin A drugs with a concentration of more than 1,000UI. Duck eggs must be washed and boiled before use. It is best not to use boiled fetal duck eggs overnight, because the nutrients in them will produce harmful bacteria that affect health.
3. Fetal Duck Egg in Can Tho
Each region has a different way of enjoying fetal duck eggs. In Hanoi, the egg is removed from the shell and immediately placed in a small bowl (without using a cup), rolled up with a spoon, and eaten normally. In the South of Vietnam, boiled eggs are placed on a small tray, the big end of the egg is facing up, then just peeled at the top, then eaten with accompanying spices. This is also a very popular drink in the South. In Da Nang, the seasoning part is also different from other places. People often make sweet and sour fish sauce and papaya, add spicy and hot substances such as laksa leaves, chili peppers, ginger to reduce the fishy taste of eggs. In Can Tho, in addition to common spices, people also eat duck eggs with sweet and sour foods made from carrots and radishes. Coming to Can Tho City, when visiting at night, please enjoy this dish of roasted duck to feel a typical culinary feature at night on small alleys.
Western tourists and those who see duck eggs for the first time are often afraid and do not dare to eat duck eggs. The reason is probably because the image of the duck is clear in all parts, the wings make them so scared that this dish often appears in the courage challenge program Fear Factor (TV program that people like to watch). Participants also had to eat ground worms and the like. In addition, the duck seed also appears twice in Survivor: Palau, once in Survivor: China.
4. How to Make Fetal Duck Egg
The way to boil an egg seems to be simple, but if you don’t pay attention to the time, it is very wasteful as well as making the eggs tough, the residue, the cracked eggshell makes the water seep in, making the dish not as delicious as possible.
Meal: 3
Preparation time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 15 minutes
Ingredient
6 duck eggs
1 piece of fresh ginger
1 handful of laksa leaves
Soup
Pepper
Cooking
Preliminary processing of laksa leaves and ginger
Pickled laksa leaves, remove the root, wash and drain.
Peel the ginger, slice it thinly, and then slice it.
How to boil duck eggs
Rinse thoroughly the fetal duck egg if necessary, then add the eggs to the pot. Pour in a large amount of water, twice the height of the egg.
Turn on the stove, put on high heat. When the soup boils, lower it and boil for 15 minutes (from the time the water boils) then turn off the stove for another 5 minutes to enjoy.
Boiling time for eggs is 15 minutes
Time to boil duck eggs is 15 minutes to boil and 5 minutes to braise. This is just enough time for the duck eggs to cook completely without being dry, the pulp, the egg juice inside is as sweet as possible.
This time is 5 times longer than boiled eggs (3 minutes).
5. Pro tips:
Here are our tips for easing your mind (and stomach) around food-handling environments that you may not be used to.
Make sure the food is freshly cooked. If you’re eating hot street food, it’s always safest (not to mention more delicious) to eat food you can see being cooked to order.
Look for lines and busy stalls. Busy street food stalls are an indicator of popularity, and their high turnover rate means the food is never sitting out for hours and developing dreaded bacteria. Yes, long lines can be discouraging when you’re hungry after a full day of exploring, but it’s not worth the risk of grabbing precooked food from the empty spot next door.
Eat when the locals are eating. The last and most important element here is when to eat. You’re likely already on a weird eating schedule while you’re traveling, but it’s important to try and adjust to the eating times of where you are. A bowl of pho might be lunch for Americans, but it’s breakfast for the Vietnamese. This ensures that you’re eating freshly cooked food and that you can find the best and most popular places to eat.
If you can’t drink the water, then you can’t eat the salad. Most people get so hung up on not drinking the water or skipping ice in drinks that they don’t think about all of the other ways in which water is used in food service. Fruits and vegetables tend to be washed with tap water in most places, rather than the filtered water that locals drink—or sometimes it’s not washed at all. If you’re really craving some produce, try fruits you can peel or cooked veggies.
Trust your gut. If you’re unsure about the food or the way that it’s being prepared, then keep moving. Eating street food all over the world doesn’t make you an expert. Every stall and every country are different, and sometimes the rules can be harder to follow. When something doesn’t look, smell, or feel right, don’t eat it! Trust your judgment. Chances are that there’s another spot close by that’s making something more delicious.
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Can Tho: Co Ut’s Cong cake, Ut Dzach Fine Rice Vermicelli, Thanh Van Grilled Pork Sausage, Crab Noodle Soup At Floating Market, Scorched Rice with Caramelized Fish Sauce, 7-Toi’s Duck Meat Pancake, Banh Mi Thuy, Banana Blossom Salad, Fried Spring Rolls, Fresh Spring Rolls, Fetal duck egg (balut), Honeycomb Cake, Mini Sticky Rice Cake, Cassava Silkworm Cake, Grilled Banana Wrapped in Sticky Rice, Khmer-style Bun Goi Da Soup, Egg Coffee, Con Son Grilled Snakehead Fish, Bun Mam – Fermented Fish Noodle Soup, Lau Mam – Fermented Fish Hotpot, Grilled Snails with Pepper, Magenta Sticky Rice Cake, Duck cooked with Fermented Tofu, Rice Noodle Pizza, Vegetarian Noodle Soup, Snails Stuffed With Pork…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Chau Doc: Chau Doc Fish Noodle Soup, Sugar Palm Fruit, Basa Fish Hot Pot, Mam (Fermented fish), Phu Huong Beef Noodle Soup, Broken Rice with Pork Chop, Long Xuyen Broken Rice, Nui Cam Pancake, O Thum’s Chicken Grilled with Lime Leaves, Stir-fried Shrimp with Sesbania Flower, Sweet & Sour Soup with Siamese Mud Carp Soup & Sesbania Flower, Caramelized & Braised Catfish, Grilled Rice-field Rat with Salt and Chili…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Soc Trang: Pia Cake, Cong Cake (Banh Cong), Bun Nuoc Leo Soc Trang’s Noodle Soup, Soc Trang’s Bun Goi Da Soup, Duck Noodle Soup with black Pepper, Curry Noodle Soup, Grilled Beef on Tile, Khmer-style Tube Cake, Khmer-style Mung Bean Cake (Banh In), Dried Radish (Xa Bau), Stir-Fried Noodles with Seafood (Mi Sua), Soc Trang’s Green Rice Flakes…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Ben Tre: Phu Le Rice Wine, Ben Tre’s Coconut Candy, Flat Banana, Coconut Rice, Snail Pancake, Sea Snail with Coconut Milk, Coconut Worm, Young Coconut Salad with Shrimp & Pork, Son Doc Puff Rice Paper…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Cai Be: Puffed Rice Cake…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Vinh Long: Elephant Ear Fish (fried giant gourami)…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in My Tho: Fried Sticky Rice, Snakehead Fish Rice Porridge, Hu Tieu My Tho (Noodle Soup), Coconut Banana Cake…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Tra Vinh: Macapuno Coconut, Bun Nuoc Leo Tra Vinh’s Noodle Soup, Tra Cuon’s Sticky Rice Cake…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Sadec: Sa Dec Noodle Soup, Sadec Crab Hotpot, Lai Vung Spring Rolls, Sa Giang Shrimp Puff Pastry, Lai Vung Tangerine…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Bac Lieu: Spicy Beef Noodle Soup, Bac Lieu’s Three-striped Crab, White Radish Pies, Bac Lieu Thick Noodles & Creamy Coconut Milk, Bon Bon Pickles…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Ca Mau: Banh tam ga cay (Silkworm rice cake with curried chicken), Grilled Vop clams with salt and pepper, Grilled Mudskipper Fish, Stone Crab Roast With Salt, Young Bee Salad, Nam Can’s Crab, U Minh Forest’s Honey, U Minh’s Fermented Fish Hotpot…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Hau Giang: Cau Duc Pineapple, Cai Tac’s Pork Organs Porridge, Hau Giang’s Bronze Featherback Fish Cake…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Ha Tien: Herring Fish Salad, Spider crab cake soup, Ken Noodle soup, Xoi Xiem (Siamese sticky rice), Steamed Noodle soup, Ha Tien Oyster porridge…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Rach Gia: Stir Noodle Soup, Kien Giang Fish Noodle Soup…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Con Dao: Bang nut jam, Vu Nang Snail, Roasted Pork Bread (Banh Mi), Coconut Ice Cream…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Phu Quoc: Phu Quoc Sim Wine, Phu Quoc Pepper, Phu Quoc fish sauce…
Hopefully, the above tips will help you to come up with a great plan for your adventure in Mekong River Delta, Vietnam. Have a safe trip!
“Sleep less, travel more, respect more” – Thomas Vietnam – Local travel expert.
Thank you
