Indonesian Chicken Soup (Soto Ayam)

This can be eaten as soup, or as a supper dish with rice. If you serve it as a main course, this ingredients will feed four to six people.

2 chicken breasts

120 g (4 oz) shrimps

120 g (4 oz) beansprouts

½ tsp ground ginger

2 ½ cups chicken stock

4 cloves garlic

5 kemiri (candlenuts)

1 cabe rawit or ¼ tsp chili powder

a pinch of turmeric

1 tsp salty (clear) soya sauce

salt and pepper

for the garnish :

4 spring onions (chopped)

several springs of seledri (flat-leaved parsley)

wedges of lemon

1 potato, sliced thin and fried until crisp

fried onions

1 hard-boiled egg (optional)

Soto-Ayam

Season the chicken breasts with I crushed clove of garlic and salt and pepper, and boil them for 30-40 minutes. Take out the chicken and allow to cool. Clean the beansprouts.

Pound the kemiri and garlic, and cabe rawit into a paste, and fry this in a little vegetable oil for 1 minute. Add the shrimps, turmeric, ginger and soya sauce. Shred the boiled chicken and add this to the sauce. Pour on 1 cup of stock, cover, and simmer for 5 minutes. Add the rest of the stock, adjust the seasoning, and simmer for another 10 minutes. Just 2 minutes before serving, put in the beansprouts.

Arrange slices of hard-boiled egg and fried potato in soup plates and sprinkle with chopped spring onions and seledri. Top with slices or wedges of lemon. Bring the soto to table in a large serving-bowl and ladle it on to the plates. Sprinkle on the top with fried onion. This should be served very hot.

If you eat soto as a supper dish, make some plain boiled rice to go with it, you may also want to add a little more chicken. If you think the cabe rawit, or chilli powder, will make the dish uncomfortably hot, then leave this ingredient out. If you are cooking for people who disagree amongst themselves on how hot their food should be, then make your soto without chilli but provide a side-dish of hot sambal for the spice-lovers, for example Sambal Kecap or Sambal Cuka.

To serve for to six