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Tendon as food

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Many people across Asia enjoy eating beef tendon. Tendon is a part of an animal that is very tough. It is also very fibrous. It contains large amounts of collagen. This protein helps change how the food feels in your mouth. After cooking, it can feel like fatty meat. This happens even though the tendon has very little fat.

Cooking tendon takes a lot of patience and skill. You cannot cook it quickly like a steak. Some cooks boil the tendon for eight hours. This long time makes it very soft. Other cooks choose to deep fry the tendon instead. Deep fried tendon can taste like chicharrón. Chicharrón is a type of fried pork belly.

Many different cultures have special ways to use this ingredient. In China, people eat tendon at dim sum restaurants. One dish involves marinating the tendon in garlic. In Indonesia, you might find tendon inside beef meatballs called bakso. You can also find it in a noodle dish called mie kocok. This dish uses meatballs, beansprouts, and beef tendon. There is also a spicy soup called soto.

Other countries have their own unique traditions for tendon. In Japan, beef tendon is a common part of oden. Korean cooks often use high pressure to steam the tendon. This makes the meat very soft to eat. They might serve it with soy sauce and green onions. In the Philippines, people call tendon litid. They boil it for hours until it is sticky and gelatinous. It is used in a soup called bulalo.

Noodle soups are a wonderful way to enjoy tendon in many places. In Vietnam, people often add it to pho. In Thailand, it is added to noodle soups. One example is Guay tiew nuea toon. This is a steamed beef noodle dish. You can find this specific dish at Wattana Panich in Bangkok. These different dishes show how one ingredient can be many things.

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