No Balut in Winter

I have been craving for balut for weeks now but the store I go to seems to always run out. This surprises me because they usually have a bunch of them in the fridge. So one day I asked.

How come you're always out of balut? Because it's winter. The lady replied. Typically, ducks lay more eggs in summer when the days are longer and fewer in the winter when days are shorter.

Ahh... Maybe that explains why they put lights on a poultry.

Anyways, I guess I'll have to wait until spring or summer. Or try to call the store everyday :-)

For someone who has not heard of balut, it is a fertilized duck egg with a nearly-developed embryo inside. We boil it and eaten in the shell. They are considered delicacies of the Philippines and some other Asian coutries like Cambodia and Vietnam. Popularly believed to be an aphrodisiac and considered a high-protein, hearty snack, balut are mostly sold by street vendors at night in the regions where they are available. They are often served with beer. The Filipino and Malay word balut (balot) roughly translates to mean "wrapped".

Most people prefer to eat balut with a pinch of salt. Others like to dip it with vinegar with chili. We usually start out by sipping the broth surrounding the embryo from the egg before the shell is peeled and the chick and yolk inside can be eaten. Nothing but the shell is wasted.

Here's an excerpt from Wikipedia:

In the Philippines, balut have recently entered higher cuisine by being served as appetizers in restaurants: cooked adobo style, fried in omelettes or even used as filling in baked pastries.

Today, balut production has not been mechanized in favor of the traditional production by hand. Although balut are produced throughout the Philippines, balut-makers in Pateros are renowned for their careful selection and incubation of the eggs.

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 out of buckets of sand, used to retain warmth, and are accompanied by small packets of salt. Uncooked balut are rarely sold in Southeast Asia.In the United States, many Asian markets occasionally carry uncooked balut eggs, though their demand in North America is not very great. The cooking process is identical to that of hard-boiled chicken eggs, and baluts are enjoyed while still warm.

Duck eggs that are not properly developed after nine to twelve days are sold as penoy, which look, smell and taste similar to a regular hard-boiled egg. In Filipino cuisine, these are occasionally beaten and fried, similar to scrambled eggs, and served with a vinegar dip.

The age of the egg before it can be cooked is a matter of local preference. In the Philippines, the perfect balut is 17 days old, at which point it is said to be balut sa puti ("wrapped in white"). The chick inside is not old enough to show its beak, feathers or claws and the bones are undeveloped. The Vietnamese prefer their balut matured from 19 days up to 21 days, when the chick is old enough to be recognizable as a baby duck and has bones that will be firm but tender when cooked. In Cambodia, most people prefer to eat it while it is still warm in its shell. Served with nothing more than a little garnish, it is widely popular. Usually, it is accompanied by a mixture of lime juice and ground pepper.