Soto Ayam is a common hawker food in Singapore, Malaysia that originated in Indonesia. As in most Singapore muslims foods, soto ayam’s soup is cooked spicy. The spiciness is from the black pepper ground within the spice paste, you can add chillies to make it even more spicy. This is one of the food we would call muslim food in Singapore, because our Malays are normally muslims.
Besides Mee Soto, other food that our muslims cook really well is the Satay, Mee Rebus, Lontong and Roti John. Muslim food in Singapore is normally spicy. This is how the stall normally looks like:
It is generally easy to make, all I do to make the stock is add a whole chicken to lemon grass and kaffir lime leaves. After that, make a spice paste, fry it and then add the stock to the fried paste. You can make soto anything in Indonesia, but in Singapore, it is normally Soto ayam, ‘ayam’ means chicken. The hawkers top this dish with half a boiled egg, blanched bean sprouts, chillies, fried shallots, green or spring onions and bergedil.
Today, I took a completely frozen hard chicken and pop that into the pressure cooker for 30 minutes and prepare the rest of the ingredients in that time. It is such a delicious treat.
Soto Ayam
Ingredients
Soup
- 1 medium chicken I used a free range one
- 2 lemon grass bruised by the back of a heavy knife and choped into 2 cm lengths
- 4 kaffir leaves
Spice paste (ground together)
- 1/2 onions or 5 cherry sized shallots
- 5 garlic cloves
- 1 thumb length ginger
- 1 tsp ground coriander
- 3/4 tsp ground cumin
- 1 tsp turmeric powder
- 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
Noodles or Nasic Impit
- 3 liters of hot water
- 1 packet of bee hoon or yellow noodles
- Prepared Nasi Impit
Optional
- 6 bergedils
- 3 hard boiled eggs halved
- Chopped spring onions
- Chopped cilantro leaves and Thai basil leaves
- Fried shallots
- 1/2 cup of blanched bean sprouts
- 1 Tbsp cooking oil
Instructions
Soup
- Make the soup by boiling about 1.5 liters of water withe the chicken, kaffir lime leaves and lemon grass. It took 30 minutes from frozen to done in a pressure pot and probably 45 minutes if the chicken is not frozen and normally over-the-stove cooking.
- Heat up the oil and fry the spices till oil exudes.
- Pour the soup over the paste through a sieve. Adjust the seasoning.
Noodles
- Soak the bee hoon in the hot water for 1-2 minutes till just hydrated.
Serve
- Place in a bowl with the noodles and topping. Then pour soup over.
- Enjoy while it is still hot!
