Bird’s Nest Soup
My mum sent me some bird’s nest recently and warned me over the phone, ” please don’t throw it away! The bird’s nest I sent you cost me RM600 (equivalent to over GBP100!)”. I’ve never made my birds nest soup before and decided to share a basic recipe from my mum!
It has a jelly like texture and is extremely expensive! To help you get over the saliva bit, honey is produced when a bee regurgitates nectar (yup! bee puke) and is known to be good for health too!
In the olden days, edible birds nest used to be harvested from caves and workers risked their life and limb by climbing up without any safety equipment. Nowadays, it’s a highly controlled business (it’s like diamonds) and people actually build or rent shoplots and really go the distance to make it a comfortable bird hotel like playing specialised swiftlet calls and adding bird poop to encourage swiftlets into nesting there. I remember once when we were island hoping in Thailand, our tour guide told us NOT to go near a particular island with caves. He said that they harvest birds nest there and will shoot before asking as people have tried to come and poach nests before.
1 piece bird’s nest, cleaned
2 bowls (500ml) water
5 dried dates
rock sugar to taste
Soak dates
Bring birds nest, water, dates to a boil and simmer on low heat for 15 mins. I then moved this into a thermal pot to continue cooking for another 45 mins.
Add rock sugar to taste
Note: Be careful not to over cook as the birds nest disintegrates when over cooked. You can also add other optional ingredients like goji berries, pandan leaves, lotus nut, egg.
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| Birds nest is a chinese delicacy and usually consumed as a soup. It sounds rather unappetising, as the part consumed is actually the saliva of a swiflet and is believed to have multiple health and beauty benefit |
In the olden days, edible birds nest used to be harvested from caves and workers risked their life and limb by climbing up without any safety equipment. Nowadays, it’s a highly controlled business (it’s like diamonds) and people actually build or rent shoplots and really go the distance to make it a comfortable bird hotel like playing specialised swiftlet calls and adding bird poop to encourage swiftlets into nesting there. I remember once when we were island hoping in Thailand, our tour guide told us NOT to go near a particular island with caves. He said that they harvest birds nest there and will shoot before asking as people have tried to come and poach nests before.
Bird's nest soup recipeIngredients:
1 piece bird’s nest, cleaned
2 bowls (500ml) water
5 dried dates
rock sugar to taste
 |
| He said that they harvest birds nest there and will shoot before asking as people have tried to come and poach nests before |
Methods:
Soak birds nest for 45 mins or until translucentSoak dates
Bring birds nest, water, dates to a boil and simmer on low heat for 15 mins. I then moved this into a thermal pot to continue cooking for another 45 mins.
Add rock sugar to taste
Note: Be careful not to over cook as the birds nest disintegrates when over cooked. You can also add other optional ingredients like goji berries, pandan leaves, lotus nut, egg.
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