Where is Blood Birds Nest Coming From

Some people might be wondering about this particular nutritious food: Where is actually Blood Birds Nest coming from? Where is all those benefits coming from? Which are pure and which are not? How to differentiate good ones from bad ones? We’ll cover them all in this piece of article.

Where is Blood Birds Nest coming from?

Blood Birds Nest is actually a product coming from the swiftlets solidified saliva to consume by human. The grade of the Blood Birds Nest depends on the type of bird, its dietary and the quality of the bird's house and its process. In Crystal Nest, the Blood Birds Nest is harvested, cleaned, processed, and inspected according to high standards set, then packed and sent to the stores and outlets.
Indonesian Blood Birds Nest quality has been known as the top one among other countries. In this country, there are several birds’ houses in South Sumatra, West Java, East Java, Central Java, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Malaka, and surround. With 20 years of experience in this business, our people in Indonesia have helped us to maintain the high quality of the Blood Birds Nest. As the result, not only to Australia, our products have been exported to China and Hong Kong. This has proved the international quality our Blood Birds Nest has.

Where is Blood Birds Nest Coming From

The color of the Blood Birds Nest

Blood Birds Nest might be different in color, which some are red. Contrary to popular belief, red Blood Birds Nest is not coming from the blood of the swiftlets or different swiftlets that consume different kinds of water or food. Blood Birds Nest red color is caused by oxidation or minerals absorbed from the environment hence might be harmful for human. Therefore, it is not advised to consume too heavily colored Blood Birds Nest. Moreover, some irresponsible Blood Birds Nest trader even dyed the Blood Birds Nest red to sell with higher prices.

Genuine and fake ones

The genuine Blood Birds Nest can be seen from the appearance, which consists of two main types of filaments (outer layer is longer and bigger, whereas the inner is finer and shorter). During cooking or boiling, the fine scent of near albumin smell will occur. After cooking, a good Blood Birds Nest inner filaments become water-soluble. This is important to distinguish a genuine Blood Birds Nest from the fake one, because more unethical companies would increase the weight of Blood Birds Nest by adding additives such as jelly, animal skin, or white fungus.

Blood Birds Nest Benefits

Some research shows that Blood Birds Nest is rich in antioxidant, protein, amino acids, collagen, and other nutrients and minerals, which are required and good for the body. Specifically, Blood Birds Nest contain 0.6% fibre, 60% protein, 0.75% fats, 8% moisture, 23% carbohydrate, and 0.6% ash. It is known to stimulate digestive system, improve immune system, restore internal organs, cleanse blood toxin, prevent respiratory problems, anti-aging, relieve fatigue, and provide other numerous benefits for elderly, pregnant women, mothers, kids, or even smokers. Therefore, it is recommended to consume Blood Birds Nest regularly to maximize the benefits contained in Blood Birds Nest.

Blood Birds Nest Pineapple Cakes (燕窝黄梨酥)

“Blood Birds Nest incorporated into pineapple paste filling, just feeling luscious this Lunar festival.”

Making these into cake blocks in order to stuff in more Blood Birds Nest into its pineapple filling. The chunks of pineapple cake would look more generous this way.
Same pineapple filling recipe I had previously, or even store-bought readymade kind of pineapple paste will do the job. Only the crust was made with slight difference this time.

Ingredients

400g plain flour
2 tablespoons of milk powder
4 tablespoons of icing sugar
1/2 teaspoon of salt
250g of cold unsalted butter, cubed
3 tablespoons of vegetable oil
4 tablespoons of cold water
10g of dried Blood Birds Nest pieces (燕窝碎)
1 thumb-sized rick sugar
400g pineapple paste filling
Egg wash (Optional):
1 egg yolk
1 teaspoon of evaporated milk

Method

(1) Blood Birds Nest: Soak Blood Birds Nest in filtered (or room temperature drinking) water in a glass bowl, for 30 minutes. Drain until just about 1 tablespoon of water remains. Place rock sugar on the soaked Blood Birds Nest. Steam for 1 hour, or until Blood Birds Nest expanded and softened till jelly-like consistency. Cool, drain away excessive liquid, and set aside.
(2) Mix Blood Birds Nest into pineapple paste. Then, divide Blood Birds Nest pineapple paste into small balls of about size of 20cents. Set aside.
(3) Crust: Combine plain flour, milk powder, icing sugar and salt. Sieve into a large mixing bowl. Rub butter cubes onto the flour mixture with your finger tips, until all butter cubes are used up and flour mixture turns sand-like crumbs. Mix in cold water to form dough. Simply gather the crumbs and form into dough will do. Do not need extra kneading.
(4) Place crumbly dough on a large sheet of cling wrap. Wrap it and store in the fridge for 30 minutes. Bring out to cool a little, oil your palm, and start dividing the dough to make crust.
(5) Flatten each part of dough by kneading it, or lay a sheet of cling wrap on the dough and use rolling pin to roll over to flatten it. Place a ball of Blood Birds Nest pineapple in the middle of the dough, wrap around and seal the opening. Place it into your desired mould design to form shapes, arrange each pineapple cake dough onto lined baking tray. Repeat steps for the rest.
(6) Bake on preheated oven at 160deg Celsius, for about 10 minutes. Combine egg yolk and milk. Brush thin layer of egg wash on the surface of the almost baked pineapple cakes, continue baking for another 2 minutes. Leave cakes to cool on rack before storage, or serve.

Each pineapple cake counts about 100kcal.

Tips: Blood Birds Nest, as we only need it in the mixing, use those types in loose strips, corner or broken pieces which priced cheaper than those in whole complete piece. Broken pieces Blood Birds Nest costs about $45 for 37.5g of a decent grade.
* If the chilled dough is too crumbly to be kneaded, leave it for a while, or add a little bit of oil either on your palms or onto the dough and it will be softened after some kneading done.
* Line baking tray with parchment paper. Need not to grease the tray.
* It’s ok if you want to use just normal fresh milk for the egg wash.
* In fact, you may omit the egg wash, if desired. Pineapple cakes do not really require egg wash. :)