Soto Kudus (Kudus Chicken Soup)

Kudus is a city in Central Java, Indonesia. It has been famous for its clove cigarettes (known as kretek ) product for long time.

Soto is also known as Indonesian dishes. There are many kind of soto vary according to the city of they came from. For example there are Soto Betawi, Soto Magetan, Soto Madiun, Soto Sulung, Soto Lamongan, Soto Bandung, etc. Different places use different ingredients, and off course make different tastes.

For me, Soto Kudus has the simplest ingredients. It tastes so fresh though.

Ingredients:

1 free range chicken or organic chicken (Indonesia= Ayam Kampung), clean and cut into frying pieces
1.5 L fresh water
3 cloves garlic
6 shallots
3 cm slice galangal root (Indonesia= Lengkuas), crushed
2 salam leaves (Indonesian Bay leaves)
2 Jeruk Purut leaves (Indonesian small fragrant kind of lime, or you can use lemon’s skin peel)
¼ teaspoon of turmeric powder
¼ teaspoon of white pepper powder
1 teaspoon of salt
A pinch of sugar to replace MSG (Mono Sodium Glutamat)
400 cc cooking oil

Complements:

100 g bean sprouts, soaked in hot water, then drained
4 tablespoon slice of celery
4 tablespoon slice of leek
2 limes
3 table spoon of sliced onion, fried
Soy sauce condiment (crushed hot chili with sweet soy sauce)

Instructions:

Place water and chicken in saucepan or pot
Then boil the chicken in low heat
Grind garlic, shallots, salt. Sauté well with salam leaves, galangal root. Then add into boiling chicken
Add salt, white pepper powder, turmeric powder, a pinch of sugar, and jeruk purut leaves
Continue boiling until the chicken turns into gentle and smooth texture. Then turn off the fire
Take the chicken out of pot, drain it well. Fry until it turns into golden color. After that, slice the fried chicken
Present Soto Kudus with the complements

(Ps: for 6 peoples)

Related Posting:

Common Indonesian Herbs and Spices for Daily Cooking
Soto Ayam Magetan (Magetan Chicken Soup)
Soto Betawi (Batavian Beef Soup)