How to make bird’s nest soup

Chinese bird’s nest soup is one bizarrely cool dish to get tweeting about

The bird is the word

Bird’s nest soup may sound like a crazy Chinese urban legend of a dish, you know, one so bonkers it can’t be real or it’s just a funny lost-in-translation name, but the delicacy is indeed an authentic one. Rather from being made from twigs and bits of moss, they’re made from the hardened saliva from swiftlet nests and dissolved in a broth.

Head to SeeWoo or Royal Dragon to get your bowl of delicious birds nest soup

If that still doesn’t sound too appetising, don’t worry, today they’re harvested entirely for human consumption and super-high in minerals like calcium, magnesium and potassium. Believed to enhance the immune system, aid digestion and improve libido bird’s nest soup has been keeping the Chinese healthy (and horny) since 500 AD during the Tang dynasty. A dish for the elite, it was only imperial nobility who dined on the unique broth. According to legend it was the great admiral Cheng Ho who bought the bird’s nest to Southeast Asia for the Chinese Emperor.

These days, whilst still a rare delicacy, bird’s nest soup is easily accessible for mere mortals. In Chinatown you can find the sacred dish at Gerrard Street’s Royal Dragon or if you want to prepare it at home, dried nests can be bought from SeeWoo supermarket on Lisle Street.

Here’s how to make your bird’s nest soup.

METHOD:

• Soak the bird’s nest for 6 hours or leave overnight until it has softened and expanded

• Remove and chop into portions, allocate 15g per person

• Add the portions to the chicken stock with the ginger and oil and stew for 20 minutes over heat until the nests have dissolved

• Add seasoning or adjust stock levels to taste then it’ll be ready to serve!