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

Brains Cooked in a Spicy Coconut Sauce (Gulai Otak)

This is a traditional Sumatran recipe for cooking brains, which we always mix daun mangkok.

3 pairs of sheep brains

10 daun mangkok or about 180 g (6 oz) young leaves of curly kale

3 kemiri (candlenuts)

4 shallots

4 cloves garlic

1 tsp sambal ulek

1 tsp ground ginger

½ tspv turmeric

3 asam kandis or 3 slices asam gelugur

2 ½ cups thick santen (coconut milk)

salt

1 salam leaf or bay-leaf

Gulai-Otak

Wash the brains several times in cold salted water and boil them for 5 minutes. Wash the daun mangkok or curly kale, and shred it finely. Pound the shallots, kemiri and garlic in a cobek or mortar until they become a smooth paste. Add the sambal ulek and the other ground ingredients, and mix well.

In a saucepan, put half of the daun mangkok or kale, and on top of this put the brains, cut in halves. Then add the rest of the greenstuff together with the asam kandis or gelugur and salam leaf. Dissolve the pounded ingredients into the santen and add this to the contents of the pan. Cook slowly on the top of the stove for 25 minutes or until the sauce is quite thick.

Discard the pieces of asam kandis or gelugur and salam leaf before serving. Serve as hot as possible.

Spicy Boiled Lamb (Kambing Bumbu Bacem)

1 shoulder or leg of lamb (about 1 1/2 kg or 3 1/2 lb) of meat

1 onion

5 cloves garlic

1/2 tsp chilli powder

2 tsp brown sugar

a little tamarind (about 10 or 15 g or 1/2 oz)

2 tsp ground coriander

1 tsp ground ginger

a pinch pf laos / galingale

1 salam leaf or bay leaf 

salt

Kambing-Bumbu-Bacem

Slice the onion and crush the garlic. Put these with the whole piece of meat in a deep saucepan. Add enough water to cover, and put in all the other ingredients. Boil slowly for 1 1/4 hours.

Take out the meet and let it cool, then cut it into good large slices. Put the slices into another pan, and strain over them the stock from the first pan. Taste, and adjust the seasoning. Cook over a high flame until the sauce has been reduced to half its original quantity. Serve hot.

To serve six to eight

Boiled Silversidein a Spicy Sauce (Besengek Daging)

500 g (1 lb) silverside

1 onion

1 slice terasi 

a pinch of chilli powder

1 tsp ground coriander

1/2 tsp turmeric

salt and sugar to taste

2 tbs tamarind water

1 cup stock

2 cups thick santen (coconut milk)

2 tbs vegetable oil

Besengek Daging

Boil the meat for 1 hour. Leave it to cool, and keep 1 cupful of the stock. Slice the meat into serving pieces.

Slice the onion and crush the terasi, then saute both for about 1 minute. Add to them the turmeric, chilli powder, coriander, tamarind water and a pinch of sugar and salt. Saute this mixture for a few seconds before adding the meat and the stock. Then cover the pan and cook for 5 minutes. Uncover, and pour in the santen. Cook until the sauce becomes thick, stirring from time to time. Serve hot.

To serve four.

Fried Prawns

This dish is best made with fresh prawns, if you can get them.

12 - 16 prawns (the largest you can get, and certainly not less than 5 or 6 cm / 3" long)

1 egg

1/2 tsp ground coriander

salt and pepper

6 tbs breadcrumbs or plain flour vegetable oil

Fried Prawns

Beat the egg, add the ground coriander, and season with salt and pepper. Shell and wash the prawns, dry them, and put them into the beaten egg. Heat the oil in a wok or frying-pan. Coat the prawns with breadcrumbs or flour, and fry them 3 or 4 at a time.

to serve four

Buras (a steamed, stuffed rice dish)

This is kind of stuffed Lontong, but for this you cannot use boil-in-the-bag rice. Make the filling first, using the following ingredients. The quantities given are enough to provide filling for 1 cup of rice, measured raw.

Buras

2 shallots

1 medium-sized potato

2 carrots

a slice of cold lamb, beef, or pork (optional)

a pinch of chilli powder (more, if you want it hot)

2 tsp dark soya sauce

1 tsp tomato ketchup

1 tbs vegetable oil

Slice the shallots. Peel and cut the carrots and potato into very small cubes. Cut up the meet, if you are using any. Saute all these in the oil for about a minute, then add all the other ingredients and mix well; add 1/2 a cupful of water and cover for 3 minutes. Then take off the lid and continue cooking until there is no more liquid in the pan. Add salt if necessary.

Now Prepare the rice as for Nasi Putih, but to cup of rice add 1 cup of water and 1 1/2 cups santen (coconut milk). Put in also a little salt - about 1/4 teaspoonful. Simmer until all the liquid has been absorbed, in the usual way. The rice, of course, will be softer and damper than Nasi Putih would be at this stage.

Next, if you have banana leaf squares, put a dollop of rice on each one, pat it flat, put on a little of the filling, and roll it all up inside the leaf. Fold over the ends of the leaf to seal it up, and put the filled packages into a rice steamer.

If you have no banana leaves, however, simply put a layer of rice on the bottom of a pudding basin and then a layer of filling. Go on with alternate layers of rice and filling, finishing with rice. Either put the basin into the basket of your rice steamer, or tie a cloth over the basin and stream it in a saucepan as you would a pudding. Streaming time will be 30-40 minutes, whichever method you use. Leave to cool for at least 30 minutes.

Buras can be eaten warm. or may be left until cold. It will keep for 24 hours, but no longer.