Balut – Filipino Street Food

Balut or Balot is a developing duck embryo that is boiled and eaten in the shell. It is commonly sold as street-food in the Philippines. In Philippines, eating a balut is quite normal, but to foreigners, eating a balut requires a lot of guts.

Fertilized duck eggs are kept warm in the sun and stored in baskets to retain warmth. After nine days, the eggs are held to a light to reveal the embryo inside. Approximately eight days later the balut are ready to be cooked, sold, and eaten. Vendors sell cooked balut from buckets of sand (used to retain warmth) accompanied by small packets of salt. Popularly believed to be an aphrodisiac and considered a high-protein, hearty snack, baluts are mostly sold by street vendors at night in the regions where they are available. Although baluts are produced throughout the Philippines, balut-makers in Pateros are renowned for their careful selection and incubation of the eggs. Baluts can be eaten with a sprinkle of salt and spicy vinegar.

How to make Balut?
1. Choose the eggs that have ages equal or less than five days old and have no cracks. These eggs are suitable for incubation.
2. Arrange the eggs on a sack and let them be under the sun for about 3 to 5 hours.
3. Under 42 to 42.5 o Celsius, heat a big container that contains unpolished rice. That rice should then be put into the bottom of an incubator basket/container.
4. A number of eggs that ranges from 100 up to 125 should then be placed into a big abaca cloth and will then be alternated with the unpolished heated rice.
5. Monitor the eggs from time to time and rotate the eggs thrice each day.
6. Do not forget to heat the rice twice a day: in the morning and afternoon.
7. Candle the eggs during the following days: 7th day, 14th day, 18th day. Remove the infertile eggs.
8. The remaining candled eggs will then be boiled and sold as balut.

Balut – Street Food in Philippines