Surely many have heard of such a Chinese delicacy as "swallow's nests". True, in reality it turns out that few people know what this mysterious dish really is, what it consists of and how to cook it. The idea of ​​getting these very nests seems very strange, and even more so - there are them. But the Chinese have a completely different opinion on this matter, because it is not for nothing that "swallow's nests" have long been considered food worthy of the imperial table.

"THE SWALLOW NEST"

On the bare rocks of some islands of the South China Sea, where there is no blade of grass, no clay, no sand,in hard-to-reach caves or gorges,one of the species of stone swifts, very similar to swallows - salangans - build their nests, using as "building material" juveniles of thin, long, like wire, sea fish, such as saury, which has no bones yet, garlands of sea eggs on sea ​​kale and other edible algae, which, combined with bird saliva produced fromwith the help of the glands located under their tongue, they are dried to the state of a stone under the scorching sun and sea wind.

Birds usually take 40 days to build a nest. The nest looks like a "protein" cradle measuring from 5 to 6 centimeters.

This ideal (boneless, healthy) fish and vegetable product, lightly peeled on all sides, is a semi-finished product that does not deteriorate for years.

A product (or rather, a semi-finished product) belonging to the "mysterious", "mysterious", "exotic" products of Chinese cuisine. There is a lot of incorrect and conflicting information about the appearance, taste and use of the "swallow's nest". Nothing definite is usually reported about its composition. Even in cookbooks, a dish is sometimes called a "swallow's nest", while this is a type of product that can be an integral part of various dishes, serve as an additive to them.

The history of swallow nest soup goes back at least 700 years. It is believed that it dates back to the initial period of the Ming Dynasty - XIV-XVII centuries. According to the legend, the pioneers of the "swallow's nests" were the warriors of the emperor of the Jin dynasty in the 13th century, who were defeated by their enemy, and therefore were cut off on a small rocky island. This harsh place could not boast of an abundance of vegetation or the presence of animals that could be eaten. Therefore, out of desperation, one of the warriors came up with the idea to cook soup from the nests of birds that settled on the rocks. Such an unexpected dish not only saved the lives of the remnants of the defeated imperial army, but the emperor himself was extremely pleased. Since then, "swallow's nests" have become a local delicacy, and such a patriotic background only fueled interest in this dish. Until now, anyone who finds himself in China can taste the food of imperial soldiers and for a moment imagine himself in their place. After all, since those times, oddly enough, not only the taste of this dish has not changed, but even the way it is obtained.
Today, such a culinary masterpiece is the first dish on the exotic table of China and many other Asian countries.

Every year, at the end of February and beginning of March, a team of pickers, mostly from local residents, landed on small rocky islands on the southern coast of China. They have to collect several batches of nests in a couple of months, which hardworking birds will create one after another to raise their offspring.

Nest-pickers climb rocks and knock down nests with sticks and ropes. You can carry a lot at a time, because swifts settle on the rocks in colonies.The size of the nest is about five centimeters diagonally. It is reminiscent of a porcelain cup in its graceful form.Color - whitish-yellowish, translucent (highest grade), gray, reddish-gray and black.

The assembly of "swallow's nests" in the Tiger Cave on one of the small islands in the Andaman Sea, located southwest of Thailand, takes place at an altitude of 120 meters.

The nesting season runs from February to May.Nests are harvested three times during the season. Birds restore them twice, usually in the same place. Hunters do not touch the third nest until the chicks grow up. New nests outside the season of gathering for food are no longer suitable, because, for some reason, even slivers, fluff, moss, earth and other delights, fastened with protein saliva, do not arouse appetite among visitors to exotic restaurants.

Viking Cave on Koh Phi Phi Don. Thailand.

"Swallow's Nest" belongs to the category of seafood dishes, along with scallop, trepang, cuttlefish, jellyfish. Pieces of "swallow's nest", filled with boiling water and aged for 5 hours (the water is changed), can increase in volume by 8-12 times (depending on the percentage of fish and algae). For disinfection, cleaning from pebbles and other impurities, the "swallow's nest" is also treated with barium oxide, which gives an alkaline reaction. Then they are washed several times in cold and warm water.

Most delicacies are purchased for home cooking, but Hong Kong restaurants can order soup made from them for $50 a serving. Usually the nests are cooked in chicken broth. There are also more refined recipes, for example, "Phoenix swallowing a swallow" - chicken boiled twice in a porcelain dish stuffed with nests.They are added to chicken cutlets (meatballs) or served with vegetables and other side dishes.

Swallow's Nest is considered the highest value food product: a pound of it is valued at 500 Hong Kong dollars!

As everyone knows, China is terribly overpopulated. And this situation has persisted for centuries. As a result, China was forever starving. And with hunger you just can’t eat. So they learned in the Celestial Empire not to neglect what the heavens send. In Chinese cuisine, you can find a roast of a snake and a cat, called the "Dragon-Tiger Battle", shark fins, earthworms, chickens baked in salt, ants, mice and rats, snails, dog meat goulash, duck eggs aged for a hundred days in lime dressing.

In a word, the national cuisine has concentrated the skills of cooking everything that ran past (or crawled). Moreover, in China they eat not only animals, but also their dwellings - for example, swallow nests. Do not try to experiment with the cooking of our swallow nests - Chinese swallow nests mean something completely different.

But what exactly?

Let's start with the fact that these are not nests of swallows, but of salangan swifts that live on the shores of the Bay of Bengal and the South China Sea. The famous nests of the baby salangana are not molded from clay, but from algae, fastening them with their own saliva. As inlays, salangans generously add eggs and fry of fish there. So it turns out that swallow nests consist of completely edible products, except for accidentally stuck feathers.

There was a strong opinion that all dishes of oriental cuisine are terribly healing, downright a panacea for all misfortunes. I don't know about all other dishes, but the swallows' nests seem to justify the expectations attributed to the rumor. It is natural that swallow nests, which are actually seafood, contain a large amount of iodine. In addition, they contain phosphorus, calcium, iron and many other useful trace elements. But this is not the main thing. It is important that the combination of components that make up swallow nests has a surprisingly powerful cumulative effect on the human body, improves immunity, enhances defenses, and has a rejuvenating effect. Especially swallow nests are useful for children, the elderly, pregnant women, weak and sick people.

Only the list of diseases that we could get rid of by regularly consuming swallow's nests takes up several pages. Suffice it to say that they heal asthma, chronic cough, throat diseases, exhibit antitumor activity, and contribute to the treatment of certain oncological diseases. Swallow's nests improve sperm quality, solve problems male infertility, in addition, are a strong aphrodisiac and increase potency. And women like that they rejuvenate the skin and smooth out wrinkles. Therefore, swallow nests are not only eaten, but also medicines and cosmetics are made from them.

What profit can be brought by fishing for swallow nests

Delicious swallow nests are one of the most expensive foodstuffs, their price reaches 2000 dollars per kilogram, which is comparable to the most expensive varieties of beluga caviar. Not so long ago, fishing for swallow nests was a very laborious and dangerous business - after all, salangans nest on sheer cliffs at the height of a 10–15-story building and desperately defend their home. However, now, in our highly technical age, they have been bred like chickens, quails or ostriches. For salangans, high multi-storey buildings are built, in which, instead of windows, narrow slots are arranged in the walls, like a notch in a beehive. Inside, numerous concrete beams are arranged under low ceilings. Salangans are happy to make nests in secluded corners between the beams and the ceiling. From there, they are periodically cut off by the workers of the salangan farm, trying to remove only those nests in which eggs have not yet been laid. Sometimes poor salangans have to build nests three times a year. Now all over the world several tons of swallow nests are mined every year. Considering that a dried salangan nest weighs about 10 g, one can imagine how much it is and what scale this business has reached. The fishery for swallow nests is constantly developing, and the hour is not far off when they will become available to any inhabitant of the planet.

How to make the famous swallow's nest soup

Swallow's nests are eaten not only in China. Swallow's nest soup is popular in India, Indonesia, and the countries of Indochina. You can also taste it here, but only in expensive restaurants in large cities. You can cook it yourself, if you manage to get (what the hell is not joking!) This very swallow's nest. How? First, the swallow's nest is poured with boiling water and left to swell for five hours, periodically replacing the cooling water with boiling water. For additional softening, swallow nests are doused with a solution of baking soda. Adhering feathers, fluff and dirt are removed from the swollen nest with tweezers. Then rinse thoroughly with cold water.

Soaked swallow's nest is poured with chicken broth so that it covers the nest, and boiled over high heat for 15 minutes. Then this chicken broth is drained and the nest is filled with a new portion of strong chicken broth. Add finely chopped raw white chicken meat, boiled ham and to taste monosodium glutamate, salt, herbs. Bring to a boil and cook over low heat for half an hour.

Bon appetit and good health!

Swifts live in caves, in the mountains or in urban areas in rooms specially equipped for caves. Until the 1990s many swifts lived in Indonesia, but constant fires led to their mass migration to a safer neighboring country - Malaysia.

The mating season for swifts begins from February to May. At this time they have the largest number saliva, which they use to build nests. This process takes about 30-45 days. Another 3-7 days pass in anticipation of the chicks. And if a young pair of swifts feel comfortable and safe in their home, then 2 eggs will appear in their nest, which they take care of in turn. The eggs take 3-4 weeks to incubate, after which the chicks hatch and spend another 45-60 days in their nests before they can fly. Swifts have an extraordinary memory, so it is not difficult for them to find their nest among thousands of others after a long day 50 km from home. They leave their homes early in the morning at 5:30-6:30 am and arrive back at 7:15-7:30 pm. Some swifts return during the day to feed their chicks. Swifts usually live in pairs and they do not change their “life partner” until the end of their lives. They usually build their nests at night.

The consumption of bird nests has been dated to 618-907. AD during the reign of the Tang Dynasty. To date, the main consumers of bird nests are China, Taiwan, Singapore and North America. Indonesia is the world's top supplier, supplying 250-300 tons of nests per year, while Malaysia supplies only 25 tons, but Malaysian nests are considered to be the best in terms of quality and useful composition.

Nest soup (Chinese 燕窝, pinyin yàn wō, pall. yang wō) is considered a delicacy in China, Vietnam, and Malaysia. The soup has the appearance of mucus and resembles jelly in consistency. Prepared in a water bath.

And then there are salangan farms, or edible nests, which involve the use of non-residential spaces, usually urban, to create ideal conditions for birds to fly there, make nests and lay eggs. And the resulting nests from hardened bird saliva are either simply eaten as a delicacy (with or without shearers) or used to make the world-famous bird nest soup.

In Georgetown, the capital of the Malaysian state of Penang, there is a farm with millions of salangans.

The salangan farm in Georgetown poses a significant risk to the city's health and has even led UNESCO to reconsider the city's World Heritage status.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A1%D1%8A%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%BE%D0%B1%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B5_%D0 %BF%D1%82%D0%B8%D1%87%D1%8C%D0%B8_%D0%B3%D0%BD%D0%B5%D0%B7%D0%B4%D0%B0

Let me remind you of a very unusual meal: that's what you think, but here or for example. And yet there are also The original article is on the website InfoGlaz.rf Link to the article from which this copy is made -

Deep in the steamy jungles of Borneo, in Malaysia, there is a massive fissure that opens up limestone deposits, leading to a complex cave system. The entrance to the cave is not for the faint of heart. The damp walls of the cave have millions of bats hanging from above, while the walls are covered with cockroaches, beetles, rats run across the floor and a host of other animals capable of causing horror, celebrating on bat excrement and dead salangans that have fallen from their nests. The caves are also home to snakes that feed on rats and cockroaches. The air is saturated with ammonia from bird droppings. The guano spreads across the floor to about 10 feet deep. A wooden walkway through the cave's exploration section keeps visitors safe from these nightmarish creatures littering the ground.

Located on Gomantog hill inside the protected forest fund of the Department of Sabah. The Gomantog Caves are the largest caves in the state of Sabah. The caves are best known for the bird's nests that have been harvested over the centuries and used to make bird's nest soup.

Salangans build their nests using threads that they extract from saliva. These threads harden on contact with air. The soup made from these nests is considered a delicacy in Chinese cuisine. This is a very rare dish that has tremendous nutritional value and health benefits. Some nests contain foreign materials such as feathers and twigs, these are known as black nests. Both are collected for consumption, but a clean nest is more expensive and highly valued.

The collection of bird nests is now regulated to avoid overexploitation. Twice a year, from February to April and from July to September, trained local workers climb to the roof of the cave and collect the nests using rattan ladders, ropes and bamboo sticks.
The first gathering takes place at the beginning of the season, before the Salangans lay their eggs. Birds build another nest in which they lay their eggs. After the chicks have hatched and the young salangans have left these nests, the second gathering takes place.

The bulk of the collected nests go to Hong Kong, where they are used for soup, drinks and medicine. Surprisingly, the US is the second largest importer of nests in the world.
A bowl of bird's nest soup at a good restaurant can cost $100. A kilogram of clean nest costs up to $2,000.

Despite the high price, the gelatinous soup is practically tasteless, it was described by one author as "vanilla banana with sticky noodles."

The nests in this photo are about 3 inches long. Sample as pictured cost about $20 each.

In Taman Negara Park, we were driven by a businessman who was going to repair his car in the city of Kuatan.

He spoke with joy and enthusiasm about his business, and we asked him with such interest that he offered to stop by and see everything with his own eyes. We had free time in reserve, so we gladly agreed.

His business is growing bird nests. In Russia they are called swallow nests", but in reality the birds are called salangans (swiftlets)- This is a species of swifts that live in southern Asia, they are quite small in size, slightly larger than an ordinary sparrow and look a bit like swallows.

The nesting business is one of the most highly profitable industries in the world. agriculture. - one of those countries where swifts live in large numbers, which means there are all conditions for doing such a business.

Despite the fact that Malaysia supplies only 10% of the nests to the world market, it is the Malaysian nests that are considered the best in quality and are called "white gold" here - the cost is up to $ 3,000 per 1 kilogram, and they are incredibly popular in the Chinese market.

They consist of practically one saliva, without any impurities or plant inclusions. It is for this that these birds are valued - their nests are a delicious delicacy in Chinese cuisine. The most popular dish is "swallow's nest soup", which is a gelatinous stew with a specific taste.

Of the more than 20 existing species of salangans, only a few produce nests that are edible. The bulk of the nests sold in the world belong to two types: "light-nested" and "dark-nested" salangans. The first builds a bowl-like nest, including layers of salivary secretions with a few feathers between them (it looks light); the nest of the second contains many feathers held together by saliva, therefore it appears dark and has a fleecy structure.

The high price of the delicacy is explained by the great risk for hunters of this prey. In the wild, Salangans nest in caves, the bird knows how to navigate well in the dark and makes nests in hard-to-reach places, which is the main difficulty for miners - you need to be a good rock climber.

Nests are collected 3-4 times a year.
First time they are cut in early spring, before the swifts lay their eggs. The first nests are pristine white. Returning to the cave, the swifts look for their nests and, not finding them, begin to build new ones. They are in a hurry, because the season of laying eggs has come, and there is nowhere to lay them.

Second nests- pink, it is believed that the birds are not able to produce enough saliva for the second time and therefore it is obtained with an admixture of blood, due to which the pink color is obtained - among gourmets they are valued higher than white ones.

The third time nests are red-brown. If you cut off absolutely all the nests, then in a few years there will be no swifts left in this area at all. Salangans never use the same nest twice, and for each new clutch of eggs they build new ones.

Work on the construction of the nest takes about a month. Due to the gastronomic addiction to the delicacy, a huge number of chicks die. It was the high cost of "raw materials" and the frenzied demand in Chinese cuisine that led farmers in Southeast Asia to learn how to tame swifts.

Moreover, "swift" farms mainly appear outside the main place of consumption of nests - China. They are distributed in the Philippines and Vietnam. It turns out that under Mao Zedong, this bird and the soup from its nests were declared “bourgeois excess”, and the population of salangans was exterminated by 95% in the 1970s. Today, in southern China, the number of these swifts is only half the previous level before extermination.

The ability of swifts to navigate in the dark and live in caves was the main obstacle to the cultivation of nests until one Indonesian from the island of Java, in the 70s, went to Mecca for several months, and upon his return found that his empty dwelling was inhabited swifts-salangans.

For 3 years he researched how to attract birds to an artificial structure - he experimented with the size of the room, the material of the walls and ceiling, humidity, temperature and light. He was the first to be able to record on a cassette the singing of birds, which attracted them to an artificial dwelling. All his finds are still successfully used on many farms to this day.

The farm that we visited is located on the territory of a palm plantation, the entry of outsiders is strictly prohibited there - there is a barrier and a guard post. The palm plantation is huge, they move around it in such jeeps

So we changed the sports car to an SUV and drove off

Around the groves of mature palm trees, warehouses, as well as very young palm trees



In the very depths of the plantation, an unremarkable concrete structure, it is this that serves as a haven for salangans


There are no windows in the room, complete darkness reigns and a constant temperature of 27-29 degrees is maintained at a humidity of 80-90%, using special devices
To attract birds, sound equipment is used, with various musical tracks. Some of them are designed to attract swifts to the house, while others are designed to create a "cozy atmosphere" inside

In addition, the speakers are placed on the far approaches to the house to hint to the birds in which direction they need to move.


To maintain the necessary smell in the room, specially imported bird droppings are used - guano.

Salangans make their nests under the ceiling


On average, 1 kg of raw material is obtained from 110-120 raw nests. One such concrete building produces from 15 to 25 kg of nests during the year. The wholesale price for them is about $1,200 per 1 kilogram (and in Hong Kong they are already sold from $2.5 thousand to $3 thousand, so resellers have a profit of 100% and more). And a farmer receives $18-30 thousand for a year of breeding, which is very good, considering that the average earnings of farmers in other areas are $3-4 thousand a year.

The undeniable advantage of this industry is that, in addition to the start-up capital, labor and material costs are minimal: the birds feed on their own, and there is almost no need to take care of them - only occasionally remove the droppings, which again can be used as fertilizer in the fields. This industry is also good because it allows you to keep birds even in cities and 20% of bird nests are “produced” in urban areas.

Interesting Facts:

• The total gross harvest of tasty "raw materials" is 300-350 tons per year;
• On the whole, experts estimate the world market for this "agricultural raw material" at $600-650 million a year;
• Several hundred tons of "swallow nests" are consumed annually in the world, despite the fact that the dried nest weighs no more than 10 g.
• 50% of bird's nest consumption is in Hong Kong, 8% in China, 6% in Taiwan, 4% in Macau.

In China, the soup can be tasted in expensive restaurants specializing in Imperial cuisine, and in the south, in the province of Guangdong, where this culinary masterpiece was invented. In Hong Kong or Shanghai, a bowl of this soup costs between $30 and $100.

There is a beautiful legend about the origin of this dish.
In the 13th century, when the army of Genghis Khan attacked China, the emperor of the Jin dynasty suffered one defeat after another and was driven by enemies to a rocky island. The emperor could not stand the shame, jumped from a cliff into the sea and crashed, and the remnants of the army survived by feeding on the nests of birds that settled on these rocks.

The soup is credited with extraordinary healing properties - the return of youth, the extension of life, the increase in male potency, the cure for asthma, and the glycoprotein found in the nests, which dissolves in water, stimulates cell division in the human immune system, based on this element, scientists are trying to invent a cure for AIDS and others. dangerous viruses. The soup is also very nutritious as it more than 50% of the content of bird saliva is protein.

If you are suddenly going to China or Hong Kong and the restaurant price will scare you away, you can buy separate nests and cook the soup yourself, the delicacy is usually sold in expensive and elegant packaging. And if you really want to try it, but a trip to China is not planned in the near future, you can even buy nests on the Internet, for example, through the popular Chinese website Alibaba.

Here is the recipe for you: the swallow's nest is poured with boiling water and kept in hot water for 5-6 hours, the cooling water is constantly replaced with hot water, as a result, the nest swells and becomes soft. After that, fluff, dirt and other inclusions are pulled out of it with tweezers. The finished nest is doused with an alkali solution, and then thoroughly washed with cold water. There are several variations of serving the dish on the table, but as a rule, such a nest is served with strong chicken broth with spices, or stuffed chicken with it.

After visiting the farm, the owner invited us to lunch in the middle of a palm plantation, where the workers were having lunch.


they offered us, of course, not nests, but traditional Malay food: rice, vegetables in various sauces, salads, fruits and drinks


Farewell photo with the owners of the farm

And on the road - before dark we need to be in time, which we will talk about in the next post.

All the best and always! Swallow's nests, sandalwood and amber are the three pillars that traditionally distinguish shopping for Asian (for example, Chinese) tourists in Vietnam from Russian shopping. There is also latex, but our tourists, who have mastered Thailand before Vietnam, are slowly taking it, so it doesn’t count. But swallow nests ... 100 grams of this miracle of nature in Nha Trang cost from 4.5 to more than 7 million dong (and this is not the limit), which at the rate at the time of the creation of the article is approximately from 12.6 to more than 19.6 thousand domestic rubles (and we have an article about it).

What is the value of swallow nest soup, and how they are generally eaten (literally) tried to figure it out. That's what came out of it. 😉

Background: on the attitude towards swallow nests in Asia

In fact, we heard about the value of swallow nests in 2013 when we visited Thailand. As part of an excursion to Phi Phi Islands, which are not unknown to domestic tourists, the guide told that swallow nests are harvested in Thailand, because soup from them is considered a very valuable dietary product that promotes longevity, silky hair, strength of teeth and nails, smooth skin and the manifestation of other signs of a healthy , happy and (we add from ourselves) a rich person. 😉

Arriving in Vietnam first as tourists, and then for wintering, we were convinced that swallow nests are valued not only in Thailand, but throughout Southeast Asia, judging by the number of showrooms in Nha Trang selling this product, and the number of Asian-looking tourists, this product buyers.

Note that there are a lot of products that include swallow nests (according to the composition indicated on the packaging 😉) in Vietnam: drinking water, sweet drinks, instant cereals for children, and various cosmetics (Vietnamese, and Thai, and Korean). Much is sold in ordinary stores and even on street stalls, the prices are different, but usually quite affordable. However, the content of swallow nests in such products starts from thousandths of a percent and, as far as we have seen, does not exceed 10% (we are talking about what is eaten).

The “crowning” of this entire product line is swallow nest soup, which is not available in canned form in stores (or we just didn’t come across it). You can make it at home by buying a swallow's nest and finding the recipe on the Vietnamese internet. It is on the menu of some restaurants. And we, without further ado, went for this “soup for longevity and health” to the showroom of the Vietnamese company Yen Sao Khanh Hoa, which specializes in products from swallow nests, which are mined here, in the province of Khanh Hoa. And maybe not only here, but there is an Island of Swallows near Nha Trang, and tourists are taken there.

What is useful soup from swallow nests. And is it useful?

There are a lot of articles on the Vietnamese Internet on the benefits of swallow nests for human health. If you believe them, it turns out that this product should be consumed by children aged 1 year (in more from 3 years) to 10 years, pregnant and lactating women, the elderly, as well as people prone to mental and physical activity- in general, with rare exceptions, to all modern humanity.

There are several types of nests on the market: the most common and relatively cheap are white, the rarest and most expensive are orange, even red. And, it seems, black is at a premium, but in some articles they are mentioned, in others they are not, so God bless them. "Technically" positive influence nests on human body is defined as follows (translated from this site in Vietnamese):

• swallow nests contain 18 amino acids, including essential ones (serine, tyrosine, asparagine, phenylalanine, arginine, leucine, valine…);
• they also contain about 8.6% Sialac (we did not find a definition for this term, perhaps some kind of silicon compound was meant ... or just a typo) and tyrosine (mentioned again), which eliminate cell damage caused by radiation, and also stimulate erythrocyte growth;
• they have a high content of Ca and Fe, as well as Mn, Br, Cu, Zn, which helps to calm the nerves, improve memory;
• they contain rare elements such as Cr, Se, which significantly stimulate digestion and slow down the aging process, despite the low concentration.

In general, as far as we can judge, the value of the swallow's nest is that it contains the amino acids necessary for health, macro- and microelements in a fairly concentrated and easily digestible form. Like a swallow, which is actually a salangane (a kind of swift), has accumulated all these treasures in its saliva, from which it makes nests (sometimes with admixtures of feathers, grains of sand, etc.) - a question left behind the scenes for us. Whether the matter is in the special processes occurring in the body of the salangans, or in their proper nutrition(not fast food) and observing the regime of the day (this is such a thing when you live in accordance with " biological clock", and not with the schedule football matches or the Game of Thrones series.

However, there is another point of view reflected in Vietnamese Wikipedia. There is an opinion that the content of nutrients in the nest is overestimated, and its basis, in fact, is water, salt, some enzymes and, possibly, microorganisms. And that the price of a nest is determined by the complexity of its “acquisition” (nest pickers do this by hand, moving through bamboo “forests” several meters high) and the perception of consumers, and not at all by nutritional and medical value. There is also concern that the active consumption of nests leads to a reduction in the population of the newcomers.

Going to the showroom of the Yen Sao Khanh Hoa company, we did not know all this. It’s just that swallow’s nest soup has long interested us, we wanted to try an outlandish thing, the basis of which is bought up by Chinese (by appearance) tourists suitcases. In general, surprisingly, in addition to China, this product is also actively used in North America. The main suppliers (so far) are Indonesia and Malaysia. The Vietnamese themselves are happy to drink drinks with the addition of swallow nests (we will modestly keep silent about their concentration in those drinks, something about 0.002% according to our calculations), and during the period the showroom was full of locals every evening, drinking “magic” soup.

How We Tasted Swallow's Nest Soup at Yen Sao Khanh Hoa Showroom

There are many Yen Sao Khanh Hoa showrooms in Nha Trang, but the soup is prepared in the one on the third line at 15A Hoàng Hoa Thám (there is one nearby, we mentioned it in the article about Nha Trang food stalls).

The institution looks very decent: bright, with full-wall windows, with employees in blue aozai (this is the national Vietnamese outfit), with chefs (or rather, cooks) in caps, with chic porcelain dishes that seem translucent to the light. The employees do not speak English very well, or there was simply not an English-speaking shift when we arrived. But the menu is in English with pictures, so everything is in order.

Employees of the showroom of Yen Sao Khanh Hoa: a girl in a blue aozai who greets guests and takes orders, a chef in a cap

While the point is, you can observe not only the process of preparing the soup itself (the chefs do their work behind transparent glass), but also the process of preparing swallow nests. The work, to be honest, is jewelry: cute girls with tweezers first select feathers of different sizes from the nests, and then it comes to grains of sand!

And the soup, or rather nests for it, is prepared in special steam rooms ... double boilers ... In general, in special devices. At home, you can cook in the usual "water bath".

There are several types of soup on the menu: from chicken to "soup with five fruits", each added Salangane's Nest (salangane nests). Everything is simple with prices: a small cup is 150 thousand dong, a large one is 300 thousand dong, regardless of the type of soup. We took small, but different ones: Tonya with five fruits, and Zhenya with a shark fin. The composition of the fruit soup included lychee, "seed" of the lotus, "red apple", "black apple" and something else. As for the fish soup, we don’t know where that shark with that fin was caught: in the waters of Nha Trang, according to stories, only small reef sharks are found, and then far from the coast, which tourists are only happy about.

Swallow's Nest Soup: Above, shark's fin and five fruit soups; bottom - soup with five fruits close-up

What does swallow's nest soup taste like? If you took a soup with five fruits, it means the taste of fruits. If you took shark fin soup, it means the taste of fish. We suspect that if we took chicken soup, it would taste like chicken. That is, the nests themselves, at least those that were in our cups, are tasteless. And this is perhaps for the best. 😉 And the consistency of the cooked nests is jelly. See video for details.

A more budgetary version of a dish with a swallow's nest, at 100,000 dong per serving, can be found on the fourth line, in an establishment offering takeaway Vietnamese national chao porridge (cháo). This is a liquid rice porridge with various additives, from fruits and vegetables to meat and seafood (in Vietnamese cafes with a menu adapted for Russian tourists, this dish is often called "rice soup"). The establishment is called Cháo Dinh Dưỡng Dôri, located at 8B Tô Hiến Thành, the bright yellow sign is easy to spot. Landmark: there is a small one nearby, which was written about in an article about food in Nha Trang. We do not undertake to judge the serving size and taste, because. We ourselves did not try porridge with swallow's nest in Dori.

Swallow's nest soup recipe

Last winter, our neighbor Tanya, in one of her conversations on general topics, quoted a brilliant definition of French cuisine: “French cuisine is when you fry meat for 15 minutes, and then sweat over the sauce for it for 2 hours.” 😉 We cannot vouch for the 100% accuracy of the quote, but the meaning is something like this. Actually, the story is similar with swallow nests: most of the recipes we found on the Vietnamese Internet describe in detail how to cook delicious chicken soup, or crab soup, or soup from something else, and then something appears in one of the final paragraphs of the recipe like: "... add a peeled swallow's nest and cook the soup until it is ready (20 - 30 minutes)."

The generalized cooking technology looks something like this:

1. Soak the swallow's nest in water for 10 minutes;
2. Clean up debris (this is probably what the girls with tweezers did in the showroom);
3. Further, the recipes diverge: somewhere they write that you need to cook the nest in a water bath along with the rest of the ingredients (usually this applies to fruit soup, the “remaining ingredients” are dried fruits pre-treated with boiling water) for about 20-30 minutes, and somewhere it is proposed to add prepared nest in soup (usually crab or chicken) and cook over low heat for the same 20-30 minutes, until the nest “disperses” and a “characteristic aroma” appears.
4. As for the proportions, somewhere 3-5 grams of dry nests are mentioned for 1-2 servings of soup with fruits (the volume of water is at the discretion of the cook), somewhere it is said about 5-6 swallow nests (in pieces) and two "fleshy » crabs per pot of soup (the exact amount of water, again, is not specified).
,