Filipino Blood Sausage

Had some pig blood left from the Dinuguan recipe, but what to do with it. There are plenty of blood sausage recipes mostly from Europe, but very little from Asia that I could find, Soondae from Korea, Doi huyet from Vietnam. Also came across a Hawaiian Kulana sausage but it's a store brand and a Dinuguan recipe from ChefBitoy. The following is a variation of the youtube recipe.

8oz pork belly with skin chopped
16oz ground pork shoulder
2c pig blood
1 large onion chopped
1c mochi rice flour
6 cloves garlic
1/2 lemon juiced
1/3c patis
3tbsp fresh ground pepper
1tbsp Hawaiian salt

Combine all ingredients, mix thoroughly. I have no access to pastured casings so I opted for cling film. Using 1 cup measure, scoop onto film and roll tightly. Place sausages into steamer and cook for 1hr.

Once cool enough to handle one roll was sliced and fried. Served with poached eggs and julienne sweet potato.

The sausage was pretty damn good! Enjoyed the flavor but next time it needs more spice and sour, will add chilies and increase lemon next time. Crispy exterior and creamy interior, loved the chewy bits of skin. 

Dry fried liver with butter braised cabbage

A quick simple way to get your offal in.

1/2lb chicken liver
1tbsp butter or lard
3 cloves garlic chopped
salt and pepper to taste

Trim livers and cut into bite size pieces. Place on paper towel to dry. Heat cast iron to med high, add NO oil. Quickly stir fry livers, about 2-3min, add fat, garlic, salt and pepper, cook for another minute and serve.

I like the livers medium, slightly pink inside. Served with butter braised cabbage.

Grilled trotters

Tara Firma Farms has pig's feet for $2ea so I thought I'd give them a try. Prepared the braising liquid with tamari, sriracha, lemon grass, garlic and ginger, then simmered for about 2hrs. Removed from the bath and let dry while coals were coming to temperature. The a quick char and served atop a bed of lime cilantro cauli "rice"

Being my 1st time with trotters I wasn't sure what to expect. They sticky gelatinous and chewy, not much meat and pretty good. Needed a sauce though, will make a note for next time.

Crispy Kalua Pork

We had a some leftover kalua pork and thought "what to do?" 

I wanted to try something sour, sweet and salty. 

So I tossed a sweet potato in the oven, took some kraut out of the fridge to come to room temp, chopped the pork into bites pieces and reduce the sabau (Filipino for broth or soup) to make a sauce. Sabau came from braising the pork, a tasty bone broth that was loaded with gelatin

In a word...ONO! 

The kraut was reminiscent of a pickled Asian cabbage and parred nicely with the crispy pork, salty sauce and sweet potato.

Adobong pig spleen

I saved the reduced braising liquid (water, coconut vinegar, patis, hawaiian salt, garlic, bay leaves, black peppercorns) from the pig ear recipe. Used it to wilt the bok choy

Cut the spleen in half then placed on the grill pan to get some color to it then sliced and tossed into the braising liquid. Added a tbsp of potato starch to broth to give it some body and cling to the greens.

Topped with green onions and Hawaiian slat

Flavor of the spleen was similar to the pancreas, mild when compared to liver. Cooked medium rare texture was smooth and creamy.

Spam musubi

Carb up Sunday! and a treat of spam musubi. 

Fried rice made with bacon, eggs, green onion, garlic, tamari and salt to taste. Spam flavored with tamari, ginger and garlic....and don't forget the wasabi!

Balut-raw

This was one of those things I should have flushed but ended eating it anyway. Purchased balut and in the past it was always cooked...not this time. Cracked the shell and the embryo spilled out. Thought "now what?" Grabbed the fish sauce and topped with chopped chili and garlic, then slurped it off the plate.