Soto Solo (soto ayam khas Surakarta)

As tradition built it

Serves 4. Around 1 hour.

Ingredients

• 1 free range (kampung) chicken, about 1kg, cut into 4 pieces
• 2 litres water
• 3 bay leaves (daun salam)
• 3 cm galangal, bruised
• 2 lemongrass stalks, bruised
• 6 shallots
• 4 garlic cloves
• 3 candlenuts, toasted
• 2 cm turmeric, roasted
• 2 cm ginger
• to taste chicken stock powder, salt and sugar, to taste
• 100 g glass noodles (soun), softened
• 100 g mung bean sprouts, blanched
• 100 g cabbage, thinly sliced, blanched
• to taste celery, fried shallots and lime, to finish

Method

1. Simmer the chicken in the water with the bay leaves, galangal and lemongrass until tender. Lift the chicken out, strain the broth and reserve it, then shred the meat.
2. Grind the shallots, garlic, candlenuts, turmeric and ginger to a smooth paste. Fry in a little oil until fragrant and fully cooked through.
3. Return the fried paste to the strained broth, season with stock powder, salt and sugar, and simmer until the flavours have fully melded.
4. To serve, divide the noodles, sprouts, cabbage and shredded chicken between bowls, ladle over the hot broth, and finish with fried shallots and celery, lime alongside.

Notes

What distinguishes it from its neighbours, worth being precise about. Soto Solo is explicitly a clear, light broth, without the coconut milk base of Soto Betawi or the thick, turmeric forward yellow broth of Soto Lamongan, and it is finished with fried shallots and celery rather than the koya, ground prawn cracker and garlic, that belongs to Lamongan and Surabaya's own soto family. Named Solo houses, with real dates: Soto Gading, opened 1974 by Siswo Martono and reportedly a favourite of former President Joko Widodo; Soto Triwindu, established 1939; Soto Trisakti, trading since the 1960s, founded by Ahmad Dikromo; Soto Kirana Jayengan, established 1982. A correction worth making plainly: Soto Sokaraja, sometimes grouped with Solo style soto in quick round-ups because the names sound alike, is in fact from Sokaraja, a town in Banyumas Regency, a genuinely different, Banyumasan speaking culinary region built on a ground peanut sambal and ketupat base; it does not belong to Solo and should not be folded into it.

What a modern chef changes

No named Solo or Surabaya kitchen was found doing this at chef level; this is this chapter's own considered application of general broth technique, stated honestly as such

Method

1. Simmer at a controlled, gentle heat rather than a rolling boil throughout, skimming continuously; a hard boil forces proteins to contract violently and expels impurities in a burst, which is the actual cause of a cloudy broth, not their mere presence.
2. Strain the finished broth through the chinois for a genuinely, not just visibly, clear result, the tool doing properly what a home strainer only approximates.
3. Plate the garnishes as a composed arrangement rather than a jumbled bowl, the same ingredients, an intentional rather than an incidental presentation.