soto ayam.

Tried to take a picture but no camera would cooperate, and plus it's just a bright yellow chicken soup, you can imagine that just fine I think. It's really good, a totally soothing yet spicy and exotic chicken soup.

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soto ayam (indonesian/surinamese chicken soup with turmeric).

4 chicken legs (not drumsticks, the whole leg) or 1.2 to 1.5kg equivalent whole chicken with bones.
400gr carrots, cut for soup
1 onion, in large dice
2 liters water
8 kaffir lime leaves
one 2-inch-long piece of fresh turmeric, peeled
1 tsp coarse salt, less if it's not coarse
1 habanero, Scotch Bonnet, or Madame Jeanette pepper, whole
12 allspice/pimiento berries, whole

1 tsp black peppercorns
1 tbsp coriander seeds
2 tsp cumin seeds

the turmeric from earlier, plus more if you like
4 cloves garlic
one 2-inch-long section of ginger, peeled
one 2-inch-long section of galangal, peeled
5 candlenuts
one or two tbsp water to make processing possible

1 to 2 tbsp coconut oil for frying spice paste

for serving:
fresh coriander leaves
cut limes
hard-boiled eggs if you want

Basically, combine the first group of ingredients and cook for 45 minutes. Remove the chicken, let it cool, and then get the meat off those dang legs and shred it. Also get that chile pepper out of the soup and discard.

While they're cooling, take the pepper, coriander, and cumin, and grind them to a fine powder in a food processor. Add the next set of ingredients plus the turmeric from the first step and process to a paste, adding water if necessary. Fry the paste over LOW heat for 10 minutes, it should bubble but not burn or get crispy .

Add the spice paste and the chicken back to the broth and cook for 10-15 minutes. It should be done now, but mine didn't taste awesome until the next day, when you should really skim the fat off, reheat and serve with garnishes. You could remove the allspice berries and kaffir lime leaves if you wanted. Also, soto ayam traditionally has noodles, you could do cellophane noodles if you wanted, I just didn't want.

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