'Traditionally one of the most sought after ingredients in Chinese cuisine (it's believed that consuming edible bird nest will beautify your skin), birds' nests- the saliva of cave swifts- can be a little controversial (more on why below), so I struggled whether or not to post this recipe. However, since someone gave me the saliva nests, it seemed rather wasteful not to use it and I decided to share this easy steamed Chinese bird's nest soup dessert with goji berries in a coconut recipe.
Jump to:
- What is bird's nest?
- How is it gathered?
- Where can we find it?
- Is it really good for you?
- Why is it frowned upon?
- What about blood nest?
- Why did people start eating it
- How to choose
- How to prepare
- How to cook
- Ingredients
- Tips
- FAQ
- Other Chinese desserts
- Easy steamed bird's nest and goji berries (3 ingredients)
What is bird's nest?
Birds' nests are a traditional Chinese ingredient that has been prized for over 1000 years- not for the taste (it's tasteless) or texture (the gelatinous texture can be confused with that of noodles or even plastic!) but rather for the health and beauty benefits. According to traditional Chinese medicine, bird's nest soup 燕窝 is said to be good for your immune system and skin (it promotes collagen production).
If you watch Chinese historical dramas, birds' nests are an expensive delicacy and often the favourite dessert of the concubines in the palace- only the royalty and uber rich had access to it then- as they all wanted to be as beautiful as possible.
High quality bird's nest can go for thousands of dollars so bird's nest used to be indispensable at Chinese banquets and other special occasions. It is also considered a good gift for Chinese elders (think in-laws and the like). (The jarred version that I use in this recipe is the cheapest form of bird's nests.)
How is it gathered?
To be more exact, bird's nest is basically the saliva of male swiftlets (a type of bird) which used to be found in very inaccessible areas such as high clifts and deep caves. Hence, collecting bird's nest used to be quite dangerous.
Today, there is so much demand for bird's nest (especially in mainland China) that concrete houses are being built for them, complete with bird song! The cleaning process for the bird's saliva is also very tedious: it takes 1 person 8 hours to clean only 10 nests! (Being the nest of a bird, you would obviously find feathers and what not in the bird's nest, which people don't want to see in their food, and it is traditional to clean the bird's nest again at home. One of my earliest childhood memories is our housekeeper using tweezers to pick out all the black bits in the bird's nest, as my Grandmother used to make birds nest soup on a weekly basis.)
Note: bird's nest can cause an allergic reaction in some people (although I know 100s of people who've eaten bird's nest- I'm pretty sure almost every other Singaporean Chinese person must have had some sort of bird's nest at one time or another as it's such a common part of Chinese cuisine- and not one has had an issue.)
Where can we find it?
Bird's nest is produced in many parts of SouthEast Asia, primarily Indonesia (the largest exporter) and Thailand- I remember taking a boat in Phuket to see the swallow nest being collected in a cave when I was 8 years old. Unfortunately, I don't remember much about the trip, except for the fact that the sea was beautiful, the island had been featured in a James Bond film, the cave was dark, the boat was old and I really wanted the loo but there was obviously none!- if you're curious about bird nest farming, you can read more about visiting a modern bird's nest farm here.
Is it really good for you?
You will hear a lot of anecdotal evidence from Chinese people about the health benefits of this sweet soup, but does it really have any nutritional value? In recent years, there's been an effort to back up Grandmother's stories with scientific research:
- In 1987, a Hong Kong research team found that bird's nest contains something that acts like EGF (Epidermal Growth Factor), which has anti-aging properties.
- High levels of sialic acid, which is also found in breast milk, has been found in bird's nest by Malaysian researchers, and bird's nest is said to protect against hyperglycemia-induced oxidative stress (which is a major cause of vascular complications in diabetes.)
- 2 teams of researchers (first a Japanese team (2006) then a California and Malaysia team (in 2017)) demonstrated that bird's nests' antiviral properties help inhibit influenza infections.
Note: this is meant for information/ entertainment only and not meant as medical/ health advice.
Why is it frowned upon?
A few years ago, consuming bird's nest was considered unethical as they were being harvested more quickly than the birds could produce them. Moreover, scaling the high cliffs to collect them is dangerous and some people would die in the attempt.
Thanks to the bird nest's industry's boom (estimated to be worth $5 billion in 2015), the swiftlet has been rapidly domesticated and most bird's nests today come from farms, where collection is no longer a problem. In fact, some environmentalists say that the popularity of bird's nest is actually good for this type of swiftlet! (However, only 3 of over 30 types of swiftlets produce edible bird's nest so there is concern that the swiftlets which produce inedible bird's nest will be threatened.)
What about blood nest?
There was even an urban legend saying that red bird's nest, which is the most premium form of bird's nest and more than 3x the price of the white nests, is cruel- the red colour stems from the blood coughed up by the swiftlet after it is exhausted by all the saliva production. That is not true! The red colour is actually due to the minerals in the bird's nest reacting with the environment.
Why did people start eating it
It's more legend than fact, but 1 of the most common "origin stories" is that the Chinese Admiral Zheng He was stranded in SouthEast Asia during the 15th century (Ming Dynasty), due to bad weather. (Random fact: some scholars think that Zheng He reached America before Columbus.) Left with no food, he and his crew consumed the delicate bird's nest that they found on the cliffs, and found that themselves invigorated after.
Hence, Zheng He brought bird's nest back for the Chinese Emperor, sparking the birth of this culinary practice in Chinese culture.
How to choose
Due to how lucrative the bird nest industry is, reports of fake bird nest often surface- some say that the fake bird nest is plastic and others say it is tang hoon (bean vermicelli). (As the bird's saliva has little flavor, it can be hard to differentiate from other ingredients.) In addition, some farms are unscrupulous in their farming and cleaning practices, which result in harmful chemicals, such as bleach and lead, being added to the bird's nest so always buy your bird nest from a reputable dealer.
The traditional and "better" type of bird's nest is the dried form, which is super tedious to prepare for cooking (more on that below). As more Asian women started entering the workforce resulting in them having less time to spend hours in the kitchen, a jarred version which can be consumed directly (it is pre-cooked) has since been invented. Do note that the jarred versions often include copious amounts of sweeteners, so that can be bad for you, especially if you have diabetes.
How to prepare
Dried birds' nests need to be cleaned before cooking- use a pair of tweezers to gently pluck out any dirt or impurities from the bird's nest and avoid breaking it. After that, soak in warm water for a few hours/ overnight to rehydrate. The rehydrated bird's nest is then ready to be cooked. (Scroll down for more ideas on how to cook the bird's nest.)
Jarred bird's nest, as mentioned above, has already been sweetened and cooked, so you can drink it right after opening the bottle. They come in a variety of flavours, such as bird's nest with stevia, bird's nest with ginseng etc
How to cook
Traditionally consumed as a dessert, bird's nest is now being used in some premium skincare lines as well. Alternative ways of cooking birds nest are:
- steaming or double boiling with rich chicken stock to make soup - you can add the bird's nest and other ingredients to a hollowed out papaya, pumpkin or coconut which not only increases the flavour, but also makes for a very pretty dish to serve at parties. (That's how the Michelin-starred Chinese restaurants in Singapore present some of their bird's nest soups and desserts. Speaking of Michelin restaurants, this Chinese pumpkin rice in soup was adapted from a Michelin starred restaurant's recipe that it kindly shared)
- Alternatively, you can make this Chinese delicacy in a slow cooker
- Or add it to congee or chicken broth
- For a modern twist, pop it in your bubble tea
- Wrap in dumplings - since bird's nest dumplings are a luxury food, it's common to flick some edible gold leaf (another expensive ingredient) on top to amp up the luxe factor
If you don't have goji berries, don't fret, you can still make the dessert- it just won't be as pretty
Ingredients
You only need 3 ingredients for this easiest possible version of bird nest soup:
- edible bird's nests (nest of a swiftlet bird)
- Fresh coconut
- Because coconut water is naturally sweet, you don't need to add sugar. But if you like your food super sweet, you can include some rock sugar, which has a more mellow taste than white sugar.
- Goji berries
- These red berries also help to sweeten the taste of Bird's nest soup- for more ways to cook goji berry, check out my osmanthus with wolfberries konnyaku jelly recipe which was inspired by a lunch at Jiang Nan Chun, the Michelin-starred restaurant at Four Seasons Hotel, Singapore, this Chinese black chicken soup and this Chinese longan tea recipe. (They can also be made into a herbal wolfberry tea.)
- Substitute: red dates
Tips
- Choose a smaller coconut, as it takes less time to steam and also leaves you wanting more. A big coconut, on the other hand, can feel like a bit too much.
- You will need to remove some of the coconut water to make space for the bird's nest and wolfberries- you can either steam a 2nd bowl of bird's nest with wolfberries in coconut water in a bowl (so no fancy coconut shell presentation) or use the coconut water to make naturally sweet agar agar jelly or lemongrass coconut chicken soup.
- Always buy your bird's nest from a reputable seller (or brand) to ensure that it is real bird's nest (sadly fakes have become quite common.)
- For best results, cook your bird's nest over a low fire- never more than medium heat!
FAQ
Traditionally, Chinese people have always associated bird's nest with good skin and healthy lungs. In the last few decades, there's been an attempt to prove these sayings with science and I've included some links to Scientific Research Journals in my post which document bird's nest health benefits.
Other Chinese desserts
Other easy Asian sweet recipes include:
Easy steamed bird's nest and goji berries (3 ingredients)
Equipment
- Steamer or pasta pot
Ingredients
- 1 Small coconut, with the top sliced off Avoid the bigger ones as they can be a bit too much for a dessert. Try to get pre-cut ones to make your life easier.
- 1 teaspoon Goji berries Soak in hot water.
- 1 jar Ready-to-drink bird's nest Do not confuse this with the dried bird's nest which would require
- Sugar, optional The coconut water is naturally sweet so I don't like to add sugar. If you have a very sweet tooth, rock sugar is the traditional type of sugar used for Chinese desserts but regular (caster/ granulated) sugar can do as well. Do check if your ready-to-drink bird's nest is sweetened before adding any sugar!
Instructions
- Drain the goji berries.
- Open the coconut and keep the coconut "hat" on the side. Remove some of the coconut water from the coconut (to make space for the goji berries and ready-to-drink bird's nest). I suggest removing at least 1C of the water first to avoid any spillage. Do not throw the coconut water away as it can be drunk or used to make soups!
- Open the bird's nest jar and add all the contents into the coconut followed by the goji berries. If there is empty space in the coconut, add some of the removed coconut water back to the coconut.
- Recover the coconut with its "hat" then steam. The ingredients are all ready-to-eat so steaming is merely to heat up the coconut water as well as to soften the coconut flesh. The steaming time thus depends on the size of your coconut, how hot you want your dessert to be and how soft you like your coconut flesh. I prefer mine my desserts either cold or hot (not in between!) and I like the texture of soft coconut flesh, so I usually steam mine for 20 minutes if the coconut is small and 30 minutes for a bigger coconut.
Notes
Have you eaten steamed bird's nest soup before and, if so, how did you find it?
Tina says
Never know what to do with the jars of birds nest so thanks for sharing this, the coconut makes it look so fancy, i like!