Dinuguan

I know I just had offal overload last month with LP9 but this maybe a reason for us to celebrate as it is the first time I cooked dinuguan (pork blood stew) in Beijing. Why, it’s the first time I saw it available in the supermarket! Oh well I found dugo ng baboy damo (black pig’s blood) last week but I don’t think I would like to use that. I am sure a lot of things are available here we just don’t have the time to actually go out to find where. I received a tip from a reader who also resides in Beijing (many thanks to you!), about a wet market here frequented by expats. We haven’t checked it out yet so my stock is still limited to what I find in our favorite supermarkets. Actually it’s not that bad to buy from these supermarkets. Maybe a little bit expensive but most of the time the meat and produce are always fresh and in good quality.

I have few childhood memories of dinuguan. It is also a famous carinderia dish that I learned from my dad. It is exotic and may be unacceptable to some westerners. I still don’t know how the locals cook it but I am sure they have their own special way of doing so. How was I able to find it here if they don’t eat it, right? So I accidentally saw this small slab of pork blood, looked at it and saw it is clean and nice and bought it right away. Back home, we usually buy blood from newly-slaughtered pig that all you need is mash it with your own hands in prep before cooking. Here I mashed half of it with a fork and the other half I cut into cubes. Also, I wasn’t quite sure if I could do this the right way as it’s been a long while since the last time I cooked dinuguan. Luckily, it turned out quite well.

Continue reading “Dinuguan”