best soto ayam johor.
Hello peeps!
Soto Ayam is one of the dishes that I love to make. During Raya or special occasion. I enjoyed making this dish. For me, this is one of my favourite comfort food. You’ve been eating gulais and asam pedas all week long, you need something to clean your palate at the end of the week. This is the one.
PREP TIME: 15 minutes | COOK TIME: 30 minutes | TOTAL TIME: 45 minutes
Why I’m calling this Soto Ayam Johor?
One of the secret is the spices I’ve blended in to cook the soup. I add rempah biriyani Johor as part of other spices. I’ve purchased this at the Terminal Bas and Pasar Larkin in JB. Just look anywhere and you can see pile of spices and briyani johor spice is part of the all the piles. Normally I would buy this spice in big amount so that I can stock up when ever needed back home in KL.
As part of Johorean culture, Soto Ayam MUST be eaten with begedil, nasi impit (Rice Cake), and cili kicap. This is basic toppings added to your soto ayam. Without these toppings, you won’t call this as Soto Ayam Johor. Some people eat with vermicelli noodle. But we Johorean preferred eat with nasi impit - preferably soft, not too hard - reason being the soft nasi impit will soak up the soup into it and you can taste the soup on every single bite in the nasi impit.
In this post, I will share with you on my secret on how to make the best soto ayam Johor soup. First, you make the spice paste. Next, you make the soup by combining chicken broth and and spices paste together.
ingredients.
the chicken broth.
1 whole chicken - cut into 4 parts.
2 litres of water - until covered the whole chicken
4 chicken cube stocks, I use Knorr.
2 teaspoons salt
1 cinnamon stick
4 cardamom seeds
1 piece (2-inch) ginger, peeled and sliced
5 cloves
2 star anise
1 cup water
Salt, to taste
the spices paste.
2 tablespoons ghee
2 tablespoons palm cooking oil
1 cinnamon stick
4 cardamom seeds
1 piece (2-inch) ginger, peeled and sliced
5 cloves
2 star anise
1 piece (2-inch) galangal, peeled and sliced
2 stalk lemongrass, knock on the root side.
3 tablespoons soup spice - preferrably Adabi.
2 tablespoons Korma spice - preferably Baba’s.
1 tablespoon Biriyani Johor spice.
Salt, to taste
the blend paste.
3 medium shallots, peeled
3 cloves garlic, peeled
1 piece turmeric “kunyit hidup”(2-inch), peeled or 1 tablespoon turmeric powder
1 piece (2-inch) ginger, peeled and slices
instructions.
the broth.
Add all ingredient into the pot.
Simmer under medium-high heat for about 30 minutes.
Once the chicken cooked, separate the chicken with the broth. Shred the chicken for later.
Leave the broth in a pot as it will be mix with the spice paste later.
the spices paste.
Add the oil in a pot on medium-high heat. Add the lemongrass, galangal and the “4 sekawan”. Saute until fragrant.
Add blended paste and stir-fry until it turns fragrant and intensifies in color. This should take 7 to 8 minutes.
Add in the soup, korma and biriyani spices, frying for another 3 to 5 minutes under medium heat- until the spice paste starts to glisten and split and you can see an oily film separate from the paste itself. This is the “pecah minyak” stage. (If your paste is cooking too quickly and starts to burn, add a teaspoon or two). Remember controlling the heat and continuous stir is the main keys here.
the soup.
When the spice paste has reached the “pecah minyak” stage, immediately pour into the chicken broth pot.
Give it a quick stir, and let the soup simmer for another 5 to 8 minutes.
Taste the soup, adding more salt at this stage if necessary.
finally, the assembly of soto ayam johor.
Transfer them to a bowl once they are cooked.
Add the toppings of nasi impit, shredded chicken, begedil, fried shallot, sliced chinese celery, sliced spring onion, peanut, bean sprouts, the hot chicken soup and cili kicap into the bowl.
Enjoy the meal when it is still hot.
Emir’s tip! for the soup more kicks!
To make the soup more thick, add some more the spices. The ratio is 3:2:1 with 3 parts of soup spices, 2 parts of korma spices and 1 part of briyani johor spices.
Hope you will try this recipe!
All the best! Share with me how is it going.
Good luck,
EMIR xx
