Swallow Bird’s Nest- A spoonful of legend

Properly known as Swallow Bird’s Nest, it’s been a prized delicacy in China and among Chinese people for 1,200 years. The best nests were reserved as gifts for emperors and empresses, who ruled China as gods incarnate.That’s how deep Swallow Bird’s Nests roots go into the collective Chinese soul.
Tiny Swallow Bird’s Nest use their sticky saliva to build nests onto seaside cliffs and cave walls, to save them from predators. That’s not enough to keep them away from the humans who consider the nest powerful medicine, and are therefore willing to pay more for the bird spit nests, pound for pound, than silver.

Swallow Bird’s Nest- A spoonful of legend

While trade in edible nests has been recorded since the T’ang Dynasty (618-907 A.D.), famed 15th century Chinese admiral Zheng He is also credited with starting the Chinese belief in the medicinal powers of Swallow Bird’s Nest. As the story goes, shipwrecked sailors scavenging for food found the nests, and He told them to clean and cook them. A few days later, the sailors were full of vim and vigor, and He figured he should tell the emperor.
The nests have been credited with a long list of benefits, including ensuring strong children for pregnant women and erasing wrinkles for mature matrons, providing lifelong immunity boosts for children and enhancing sexual prowess for men.
Our GM, Elaine Dang, attests to the soup’s medicinal value; ”I drank this when i was young which is where i get my immunity from,” she happily concludes.
So how exactly does the soup taste like? ”The jellylike strands had a slippery spaghetti texture, yet no discernible taste beyond sweetness from the rock sugar the meticulously cleaned nests were steamed with. It occurred to me that here was a food whose value had nothing to do with its flavors or eating qualities, and everything to with its cultural history,” explains Andrew Z. Galarneau News Food Editor at BuffaloFood.
Recognizing their value, Thai, Burmese and Indonesian entrepreneurs have been building condos for edible nest Swallow Bird’s Nest, purpose-built structures as tall as apartment buildings. They’re honeycombed with alcoves where swifts can nest, lured by recorded swiftlet calls broadcast over loudspeakers.

Preparing and consuming Swallow Bird’s Nest during pregnancy

Swallow Bird’s Nest is a chinese delicacy that is consumed by the high-ranking officials, wealthy people and the royal family in the past. Like the name suggests, it is the nest of swallows, and is thought to be rich in nutrients like collagen, amino acids and anti-oxidants. Until now, chinese have the tradition of consuming Swallow Bird’s Nest, especially during pregnancy and confinement to ‘bu’ the body.

1. How is Swallow Bird’s Nest produced?

Swallow Bird’s Nest is produced by Swallow Bird’s Nest (Collocalia species). They use a glutinous secretion, also known as “nest cement” to bind together materials for nest building, or construct a whole nest with it. The nest cement is secreted from a pair of sublingual glands located beneath the tongue of the swiftlet.
A Swallow Bird’s Nest is built primarily for laying eggs and housing the baby Swallow Bird’s Nest.
After the eggs have been laid and hatched, the baby Swallow Bird’s Nest will remain in the nest until it is able to fly away independently. The Swallow Bird’s Nest becomes abandoned and will never be re-used. If not harvested, scavengers such as ants, lizards and cockroaches will consume the Swallow Bird’s Nest.

2. How to identify the Genuine Swallow Bird’s Nest?

Swallow Bird’s Nest is an expensive and nutritious product. Thus, it is important to distinguish a genuine piece of Swallow Bird’s Nest. In the market, there are many unethical businessmen who would increase the weight of Swallow Bird’s Nest by adding additives like white fungus, jelly and animal skin.
Appearance: Good and genuine nests consist of two main types of filaments:
The outer layer that has longer and bigger filaments whereas the inner part has finer, shorter filaments.
After Cooking: When double boiled for 1-2 hours the Swallow Bird’s Nest inner filaments become water-soluble.
The outer filaments contain mainly minerals; it is less soluble but gives Swallow Bird’s Nest its signature fibrous taste and appearance.
Odour: During double boiling a fine scent of near albumin smell will occur.
Much like the smell of faint cooked egg white.

3. How to cook the Swallow Bird’s Nest in slow cooker (or double boiler)

1) Soak the Swallow Bird’s Nest until soft in tap water. This may take up to an hour.
I usually consume one whole piece, which is actually quite alot. Is even sufficient for 2 people.
2) Add the softened Swallow Bird’s Nest, together with about 250mL of water. Using slow cooker or the double-boil method, no lost of water volume.
3) Switch on and turn to high. For my cooker, it takes about 45 mins if I started out with room temperature water. But it is much faster if I use hot water.
4) Add 2 tablespoon of rock sugar and further cook for another 5-10 minutes. Buying Swallow Bird’s Nest from Hello Nest, they will give free rock sugar or special dried lotus.
5) Serve warm or chilled. Wala!

4. How to cook Swallow Bird’s Nest with rock sugar in a double boiler (simple Swallow Bird’s Nest recipe)

- Prepare a double-boiler and fill the external pot with water that covers almost half the internal pot.
- Place the drained Swallow Bird’s Nest in the internal boiler and add 1 - 2 bowls of water depending of the pieces cooked.
- Cover both the internal and external pots and start boiling the pot.
- Once it's boiling, turn to low flame to continue to boil for another 2 - 3 hours.
- When the Swallow Bird’s Nest is cooked to desired texture, stir in rock sugar to taste and cover for about 5 minutes to allow the sugar to dissolve fully
- Do remember to check the water in the external pot is not dried up and sufficient throughout the boil. Once cooked you can have your Swallow Bird’s Nest served hot or cold in a bowl depends on your preference.
You can also cook Swallow Bird’s Nest with rock sugar using a slow cooker like above method.

5. What are the health benefits of eating Swallow Bird’s Nest?

From the chemical analysis report of pure Swallow Bird’s Nest, we can identify soluble amino acids that will help to repair body cells and generate new cells. The antioxidant helps to eradicate free radicals in the body.
Swallow Bird’s Nest also contains EGF(epidermal growth factor) which produces an anti aging effect, making regular Swallow Bird’s Nest consumers young and radiant looking.
Many clinical trials of using Swallow Bird’s Nest as an anti-cancer food is now currently being conducted.

6. Why do Swallow Bird’s Nests come in different colors?

Thus it is a common misconception that blood nest is formed when the swiftlet vomits blood. Another misconception is that the swiftlet’s different diets give rise to different colour of nests.
When Swallow Bird’s Nest is first formed by the Swallow Bird’s Nest, they are white in colour; thus it is fair to say that white Swallow Bird’s Nest (Bai Yan) is the purest form of Swallow Bird’s Nest. As the Swallow Bird’s Nest spend more time in the house, natural fermentation of the nest gradually takes place and the nest absorbs minerals such as iron from the walls and water, slowly changing its color from white to yellow (Jin Si Yan) and then orange and finally red (Blood nest). Thus it is a common misconception that blood nest is formed when the swiftlet vomits blood. Another misconception is that the swiftlet’s different diets give rise to different colour of nests.

7. How to cook Swallow Bird’s Nest for pregnancy:

How to cook Swallow Bird’s Nest for pregnancy: here are easy steps for you
Ingredients:
1pc Dry Swallow Bird’s Nest
1 cup Hot water
1 cup Drinking water or boiled then cooled water, for soaking
5-6 pcs Rock/Lump sugar
How to cook Swallow Bird’s Nest for pregnancy: here are easy steps for you
Methods:
Step 1. Soak the dry Swallow Bird’s Nest in a bowl of water for about 30 minutes. Use drinking water or water that has been boiled and cooled down to soak the Swallow Bird’s Nest. After 30 minutes, carefully strain the Swallow Bird’s Nest and throw the water away.
Step 2. Put the soaked Swallow Bird’s Nest and pour 1 cup of hot water into a slow cooker. If you prefer thinner soup, you may add more hot water into the slow cooker. Cook the soaked Swallow Bird’s Nest and water in the slow cooker for about 2 hours.
Step 3. Once the Swallow Bird’s Nest is soft and cooked, add the rock sugar into the Swallow Bird’s Nest in the slow cooker and stir gently. You may add more rock sugar into the soup if you wish for sweeter Swallow Bird’s Nest. Turn the slow cooker off.
Step 4. Consume the Swallow Bird’s Nest when it is cooled.
I think the home-made Swallow Bird’s Nest tastes more natural and possesses a pretty strong 'egg-like' smell than instant or bottled Swallow Bird’s Nest drink bought from supermarkets or TCMshops. Nevertheless, the plain home-made Swallow Bird’s Nest is still bearable to drink.
I found this article that may be useful in preparing Swallow Bird’s Nest and alternatives in cooking home-made Swallow Bird’s Nest to make it more delectable by adding pandan leaves, dried red dates, dried longan, etc..

8. How often to eat Swallow Bird’s Nest ?

Scientifically, proteins which make up 60-70% of Swallow Bird’s Nest are eliminated within hours by enzymes in the body.
Furthermore, not all this proteins can be absorbed by the body. This means small and frequent dose of Swallow Bird’s Nest is much more effective, since excess Swallow Bird’s Nest generally gets eliminated and removed from the body.

How often to eat Swallow Bird’s Nest ?

Continuous dose is desirable to give you the sustained effect.
So how often to eat Swallow Bird’s Nest ? We recommend 5 g of dried Swallow Bird’s Nest (60-80 ml of Swallow Bird’s Nest) a day. A small amount of Swallow Bird’s Nest goes a long way towards preserving your health and beauty.