I’ve been mulling about how people without access to fresh blood products such as blood cake can get the taste and colour of the fresh stuff without the food safety risks and general “yuk” factor for the faint of heart. Blood pudding – that Scottish and English breakfast standard should do the trick nicely. I’m off to my local UK food supplier, Yorkies, in Jomtien, Chonburi, Thailand to get a couple, and have a go cooking two Lao recipes using blood pudding instead of blood cake or blood, namely Akha pork balls and northern Lao khao poon. I’ll keep you posted on the experiment.

Update: Yes, it works! Not the same, but it gives colour and that rich blood flavour to the Akha meatballs. OK, so bits of black pudding floating in your Khao poon is culturally weird, but its the closest you’ll ever get to the taste of blood cake in the land of “sanitized”  pork products!