Blood - an ingredient with many uses, if butcher will sell any

Liquid lunch When it comes to eating innards, blood seems to be the final frontier. Some people will eat certain types of liver (especially foie gras) while hesitating at other organs, such as the heart, lungs and kidneys. Blood, though, is too much for many people to even contemplate.

It wasn’t always this way. Back in the days when people raised pigs in their backyard, and killing them was a community event (families would help their neighbours, knowing that when they had to kill their pig, favours would be returned), the blood was the first product harvested from the animal: the butcher would slit the pig’s throat and someone would capture the blood in a bucket, stirring it so it wouldn’t coagulate.

Blood from birds and other animals is eaten, too. It can be consumed in its purest form: straight from the carcass. Some snake shops that kill their own still serve it that way, usually mixing it with rice wine so it stays liquid. Blood sausage is eaten in many countries: Britain, France and Spain in Europe and Laos and Korea in Asia. Blood thickens and enriches sauces – famous French dishes of civet de lievre a la royale and lamproie a la bordelaise contain the blood of hare and lampreys, respectively. In Chinese cuisine, blood was traditionally drizzled into hot and sour soup but nowadays it is most commonly used in blood tofu: glossy, reddish-brown blocks, which are cut into pieces and simmered in hotpot, soups, congee and stews.

Blood coagulates naturally when exposed to air; to avoid this, you need to stir it and/or mix in an acidic ingredient, such as vinegar.

I found an interesting interview in Good magazine with “blood lady” Elisabeth Paul, who worked at the Nordic Food Lab, a test kitchen set up by Rene Redzepi, chef of Noma, in Copenhagen (No 1 on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list). Paul studied blood and discovered that its physical properties are similar to those of eggs – it can emulsify and foam in the same way – and she substituted blood for eggs in recipes for ice cream, bread, cakes and cookies. The disadvantage is that blood can have a metallic taste (something large amounts of sugar can mask); the advantage is that is has fewer calories than egg, and a much higher iron content. To use those recipes, though, you need uncoagulated blood, because the physical properties change once it solidifies.

In Hong Kong, it’s apparently illegal for butchers to sell fresh, liquid blood. I know this because my friend wanted to buy it so we could make soondae – Korean blood sausage. The butcher agreed to sell it only after my friend was able to persuade him that he wasn’t a government inspector trying to catch him doing something illegal.

So, for now, these blood cooking experiments are on hold.

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