Soto Ayam-Chicken Soup (Javanese Cooking)

Soto Ayam is chicken soup Javanese style. It is mixed cooked vegetables, meat, vermicelli noodles and other garnishes added with hot flavoursome and aromatic broth.

It can be ceremonial to serve the soup, it brings family and friends together.  Place the broth in a large bowl and put it in the middle of the table with the chicken, vegetables and garnishes around.  Everyone helps themselves to assemble the soup, by putting what you like to eat in a deep serving bowl, followed by adding the hot broth and fresh herbs.
It is a delicious, fresh hot clear soup to be enjoyed throughout the year, even on a hot summer day.

Herbs and Spices for the Soto

Kaffir lime leaves, lemon grass, garlic, shallot, ginger, white pepper and turmeric.

Add salt, sugar and lime juice, season until well balanced.

Herbs and Spices for Soto

The Broth

Using chicken stock or any stock that you like.  Pan fry the shallot, garlic, turmeric in a little oil for a few seconds, add in the chicken stock and bring to simmer.  Put crushed lemongrass, ginger, and kaffir lime leaves and also ground white pepper and continue cooking over low heat for 45 minutes, until the herbs and spices impart the flavour. At the last stage add in the sugar, lime juice and season with salt to make a flavoursome broth.

The flavoursome broth for Soto

This Soto content of vermicelli noodles, cooked cabbage, carrot, and mung beans

Garnishes: are perkedel (fried potato dumplings) boiled eggs, sliced meat, tofu or even tempeh.

Recipe for Perkedal

Perkedel Kentang (Fried Potato Dumplings)

Ingredients

1 kg potato, rub with some oil

(Put in a baking tray)

Peeled cooked potatoes

Baked potatoes

2 large eggs

100 g mincemeat

½ teaspoon salt

Grated nutmeg

Ground white pepper

Vegetable oil for frying

Method

Place the prepared potato in a hot oven to bake until soft.

When cool enough, peel the skin off, and mash them up until smooth.

Add in salt, pepper, meat, eggs and mix all together

Make into round balls then press them a little to make roundish but flat shapes.

Fry in hot oil, five at the time (depending on the size of the fryer) until golden brown.

To serve

Serve together with other side dishes in a banquet.

 And also. It is a part of Soto garnishes.

Make smaller balls to garnish ‘Soto ‘ (Javanese soup)

Small perkedel to garnish Soto

To Serve The Soto

Put some vegetables-cooked carrots, cabbages, fresh bean shoots, sliced chicken, and perkedel (fried potato dumpling), fresh chopped parsley in a deep serving bowl.  Ladle the flavoursome broth.  Garnished with fried shallots.  Serve at once

Assembling the Soto, 

Soto is Served

Other Variation of Soto:  Soto Tofu

Soto garnished with Tofu (my own style)

Rice vermicelli, cooked carrots, mung beans, sliced tofu
chopped parsley and fried shallots

Hot Soto with tofu is served.

Chili Sauce and Fried Shallots

Commonly Soto is served with steamed white rice, place the rice in a separate bowl, or put the rice in the serving bowl together with all the garnishes on top before adding the hot Soto broth.


Pho (Vietnamese soup) is almost similar to Soto, in terms of the preparation, but it has a different flavour. Putting the cooked ingredients in a serving bowl,  garnish with fresh herbs then adding the broth onto it.  The good things about soup to be prepared this way is that it stays fresh, and it can be personal, as everyone can help themselves as they like it.


Soto can be the remedy of a common cold too by adding extra lemon juice, especially vegetable Soto (it is not traditional), but it can be tasty also, use hot water instead of the meat broth.

There are varieties of Soto in Java. Depending on the regions.  My Soto is based on cooking from the town of Yogyakarta.

Frozen chicken stock

To cut the preparations time, make the stock first- the base ingredient of the broth, and freeze it.

Anytime you wish to have the Soto, what you need is only preparing the vegetables and garnishes, you can have it within ten minutes.  Isn't good!






Now you have another Javanese cooking as promised.  You may like to try the recipe, have fun and happy cooking.

Until Next Post

Thanks for Visiting

Susy