Soto is an Indonesian soup mainly composed of broth, meat and vegetables. There are countless of soto variants from different parts of the country and made of different ingredients: soto betawi, soto bandung, soto ambengan, soto banyumas, soto madura just to name a few.? Soto kudus is one of the most popular versions, typically made of chicken or water buffalo meat (The traditional people of Kudus don’t eat beef as it is considered a taboo).? This is the chicken version of Soto Kudus.

Serve: 8-10

Ingredients:

• 1 whole chicken
• 4 hard boiled egg, halved
• 1 cup bean sprouts with the roots removed, soaked in hot water and drained
• 100 gr vermicelli, soaked in hot water and drained
• 1 stalk lemongrass, bruised
• 3 tbs parsley, minced
• 2 cm ginger, bruised
• 2 tbs vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup fried shallots
• 1 liter water

Spice paste ingredients:

• 5 shallots, thinly sliced
• 5 cloves garlic
• 1 tbs coriander seeds
• 1 tsp black/white pepper
• 6 candle nuts
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• 1 cm turmeric
• salt to taste

Directions:

• Grind spice paste ingredients in a spice grinder or mortar and pestle into a fine paste.
• With vegetable oil, saute shallots in a wok or frying pan until yellow. Add spice paste, lemongrass and ginger. Continue stir frying until fragrant. Remove.
• Heat water in a big pan, bring to the boil.? Add chicken. Simmer until the chicken is tender.
• Remove chicken from the pan and drain. Remove the bones and cut into bit-sized slices.
• Add spice paste mixture to the broth. Stir to combine. Continue simmering on low heat.
• To serve one serving:
  • Put 3 tbs sliced of chicken, 1 tbs bean sprouts, 1/4 cup vermicelli,? one half of boiled egg in a bowl.
  • Pour the seasoned chicken broth
  • Sprinkle with parsley and fried shallots
  • Add sambal if you want it hot.