Bird's Nest & Cheng Tng

S totally didn't need to, but she portioned out a few pieces of bird's nest from her aunt's family's caves for me. I do take bird's nest in pieces like this just not that often since I'm too lazy to cook it. I do prefer these pieces over bottles. 

Finally got around to soaking a few pieces overnight. These pieces are of really good quality! Don't take my word for it. I've been handling bird's nest since I was a kid. So it's kinda... intuitive to me how I select them versus how much I want to pay for any given batch.

There're so many ways to have bird's nest — with tonic soups, desserts, congee, over custard puddings and things. But the point is not to have too much sugar. The one way I love having bird's nest is to layer them it into cheng tng. If I'm going to be soaking things, then I might as well soak everything together, like the malva nuts used in cheng tng. This requires some planning because I would need to have time to boil up things. 

Of course I didn't go out to get the ingredients for cheng tng separately lah. Who does that?! Go to the nuts/herbs shops at the wet markets or the old school medicine shops selling herbal teas and roots and such. They would easily pack up the volume/weight needed for cheng tng when you tell them the number of pax having it. #ImpieCooks2024

I also prefer to boil bird's nests separately, plain, or at most with a few red dates and wolf-berries. I didn't bother buying a special double-boiler gadget. The cheap ceramic double-boiler is excellent when placed inside the pasta pot. Once boiled soft, I layer the strands onto whatever item I'm having. If I'm have bird's nest at this quality, then I make an effort to do up Asian desserts for it, like cheng tng because I can control the sugar levels! 

If bird's nests hold essential amino acids, then as tasteless as they are, I'd just eat them. Heh. This means that Choya could eat it too. Why not. My dog's stomach is equally precious, if not more so than mine. Choya got a few strands of bird's nest as a snack too, with cheese and egg and an air-dried thing.