Soto Ayam Lamongan Recipe (Lamongan-Style Chicken Soup)

Soto is one of Indonesian popular foods.  With many different regions and ethnicities, they do enrich the variety of soto itself in the country.  Soto is an Indonesian soup that can be made with or without coconut milk.  This time, I present Soto Ayam Lamongan.  As there are ample collection of soto in Indonesian culinary, you may see some of my soto posts.
In East Java itself where I was born and raised, I know many different soto ayam.  In Surabaya and its surrounding, SOTO AYAM LAMONGAN is one of them.   If you drive about 2 hours to the east toward Bali, there is a small town call Probolinggo, this town also has a different soto ayam.  What the difference between these two soto ayam is the koyah to sprinkle over the soto.  Soto Ayam Lamongan uses a mix of shrimp crackers and fried garlic that are ground. While the Soto in Probolinggo, the koyah is made from toasted grated coconut.
Did you remember about Indonesian yellow spice paste (bumbu dasar kuning) post?  This recipe can use that short cut.  However, my bumbu dasar kuning stock is done, so I have to make from scratch.
Soto Ayam Lamongan
Lamongan-Style Chicken Soup
modified from mbak Lia’s recipe
Ingredients:
1 whole free range chicken (about 1 kg, 2.2 lbs), quartered
2 liter water
3 teaspoon seasalt
2 teaspoon sugar
50 mililiter oil for stir frying
4 Chinese celery stalks, knotted
3 leeks, separate the white and green parts
Herbs:
6 kaffir lime leaves, torn
2 lemongrases, take the white part only and bruised
Spices
6 shallots (or 3 if you use the biggers size),halved
6 cloves garlic siung, bruised
4-centimeter long turmeric root
4-centimeter long ginger root
4-centimeter long galangal
1 1/4 teaspoon whitepeppercorn
6 candlenuts (kemiri, kukui nuts)
Complements
80 grams mungbean vermicelli
80 grams thinly sliced cabbage
4 boiled eggs, remove the shells
crispy potato chips
chopped Chinese celery
kecap manis
wedged key limes
candlenuts sambal
garlic koyah (koyah bawang putih)*
shrimp crackers
Methods:
FOR THE BROTH
Place ginger, turmeric, galangal, shallot, garlic and candlenuts in a baking pan. Char them to elevate the aroma about 10-15 minutes. Peel the skin of ginger root, galangal and turmeric roots. Combine with other charred ingerdients in a food processor. Process them until smooth. You can always use a mortar and pestle.
Roughly slice white part of leeks. Wash the green parts really well.
In a skillet, heat up the oil. Add ground spices and stir fry until fragrant. Add herb ingredients, keep stirring until darker. Remove from heat and set aside.
In a large pot, add water and bring to a boil. Place in chicken, boiled egg (I don’t eat boiled egg, so I don’t add this), Chinese celery stalks, green part of leeks, seasalt, sugar and stir-fried mixture. Reduce the heat and place the lid on, but let a bit room for air to release from the pot. Simmer until the chicken is cooked and tender.
Remove egg and chicken from the pot. Let them to cool down. Shred chicken and slice egg. Set aside. Put the chicken carcass back to the broth.
Discard green part of leeks. Toss in sliced white parts of leek into stock. Turn the heat to medium
Correct the flavour by tasting it first and if you need you can add seasalt and sugar. Bring to a boil until the leek cooked (you can add with hot water if you feel you need more stock). Remove from the heat.
FOR SERVING
To soften the vermicelli, pour boiling hot water until soft and drain.
As the East Java style, soto and rice will serve together in a bowl.
In a bowl, place cooked rice, vermicelli, sliced cabbage, shredded chicken and sliced egg. Laddle hot stock over. Sprinkle 1 teaspoon garlic koyah, crispy potato chips and sliced Chinese celery leaves.
Serve with candlenuts sambal, kecap manis, slices of key lime and shrimp crackers on the side.
* Garlic Koyah Koyah Bawang Putih
Ingredients:
10 cloves garlic, thinly sliced and fried jadikan bawang putih goreng
75 grams a good quality of shrimp crackers, follow the directions on your package of crackers to fry
Methods:
Pound and stir fried garlic and shrimp crackers until blended and smooth. Ready to be used for sprinkle.

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