Bird's Nest

Ingredients

• 2 taels bird's nest (燕窩)
• spring water (天泉)
• tender chicken stock (嫩雞湯)
• fine ham stock (好火腿湯)
• fresh mushroom stock (新蘑菇)
• mushroom threads (蘑菇絲)
• bamboo shoot tips (筍尖絲)
• fish maw from crucian carp (鯽魚肚)
• tender wild game slices (野雞嫩片)
• winter melon (冬瓜)

Instructions

1. This is a precious ingredient, not to be used lightly. If employed, each bowl requires two taels.
2. First, blanch the bird's nest in boiling spring water. Using a silver needle, carefully remove the black filaments (impurities).
3. Simmer the cleaned nest in a combination of three stocks: tender chicken stock, fine ham stock, and fresh mushroom stock. Continue simmering until the bird's nest transforms to a jade color (玉色)—this is the proper endpoint.
4. This ingredient is of supreme delicacy and demands respect. Do not muddy it with oily, coarse elements. Do not pair it with heavy, crude ingredients. Many ignorant practitioners mingle chicken threads and meat shreds throughout, which means they are eating those inferior elements, not the bird's nest itself. Worse, to chase the dish's prestige, they scatter a mere three qian (錢) of raw bird's nest across the bowl's surface—like a few strands of white hair—so that guests see almost nothing upon their first glance, while the bowl fills with coarse dregs. This is like a beggar pretending to wealth, revealing only poverty.
5. If accompaniments are unavoidable, mushroom threads, bamboo shoot tips, crucian carp fish maw, or tender wild game slices remain acceptable. Yuan Mei encountered an exemplary preparation in Guangdong: Provincial Magistrate Yang's winter melon with bird's nest was exceptional, pairing delicate with delicate, clarity with clarity, relying heavily on chicken essence and mushroom essence alone. The bird's nest emerged entirely in jade color, never pure white. Any attempt to shape it into balls or pound it into powder is mere pretension.