🥩 Chi irichee (Blood pork dish)

Chi irichee, also called Chi iricher is sauteed and stewed dish with pig blood. It is a rare dish in which pork, carrots, kamaboko(=fish cake), kikurage mushrooms, and various other ingredients are sauteed and stewed in pig's blood. The unique flavor of the dish makes it very tasty. It is also used as a medicine for preventing anemia by replenishing blood. It is based on the concept of "nirui horui", a dietary therapy in which you eat the same part of the pig as the sick part of the body to cure it. This dish is served on special occasions, and is offered to the gods and Buddha before the Chinese New Year, and is also served at Buddhist memorial services. In addition to a pig-blood dish, there is also a goat-blood Irichi dish. In recent years, pig's blood has become difficult to obtain due to Haccp management, and the continuation of the food culture using pig's blood is in jeopardy.