Soto Ayam

when you have to make your sick day soup yourself 🥺

I’ve got COVID and in between dragging myself from bed to couch and cancelling hair appointments and ruing the fact that I have to live during the slow collapse of civil society, I managed to place an instacart order of ingredients for chicken soup and an as-yet-unmade green soup. I picked this Soto Ayam recipe because it has big flavors but isn’t too spicy and would store separately really well. As loyal readers know, I love it when you store the elements of a soup separately so the leftovers maintain [brain fog prevents me from the correct word] integrity [there it is]. And spicy food has not been hitting for me lately—usually I think it’s fun for things to be spicy but lately I am just too bummed to be spicy.

Things to note about the NYT recipe I used: it is photographed with an egg, and an egg seems to be an integral part of the soup according to a very cursory google and also my memory, yet the NYT recipe doesn’t mention it whatsoever. I chose to include the egg. You could also speed this up with store-bought chicken broth and a rotisserie chicken. You could veganize it ….I don’t know how. [Brain fog.] This soupletter isn’t my best work. But it’s important to get this soup into your mind in case you too get the FLiRT COVID variant.

house style photography at soupletter has one rule: it has to be bad!!! The eggs are perfect though.

Soto Ayam

For broth and spice paste:

• 1 free-range chicken, about 3 pounds

• kosher salt,

• 1 teaspoon black peppercorns

• 1½ tablespoons coriander seeds

• 2 teaspoons cumin seeds

• 5 shallots, peeled and halved

• 3 garlic cloves, peeled

• 2 teaspoons finely minced fresh turmeric, or 1½ teaspoons ground turmeric

• 2 tablespoons finely minced ginger

• 1 teaspoon lemongrass paste

• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil oil

• 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice

• 1/2 teaspoon fish sauce

• 1/2 teaspoon soy sauce

For building your bowl of soup

• glass noodles or thin dried rice noodles, called vermicelli, bihun or bun

• chopped celery leaves, mint, Thai basil or cilantro leaves

• fried shallots

• Quartered limes

• Chili paste (such as sambal)

1. Make the broth: Place chicken and salt in a medium pot 2 quarts water. Bring to a boil over high heat. Skim off any foam and reduce heat to a simmer. Cover and simmer until chicken is tender, about 45 minutes, skimming as needed to make a clear broth. Remove chicken from broth until cool enough to handle, discard skin and bones and shred meat into bite-size pieces. [Though the 7-minute egg is officially listed in step 5, this is also a great time to boil your eggs for 7 minutes then cool them off in an ice bath, peel them, and store them in the fridge.]

2. Make the spice paste: Meanwhile, combine peppercorns, coriander seeds and cumin seeds in a small food processor. Pulse until ground. Add halved shallots, garlic, turmeric, ginger, and lemongrass and pulse to a thick paste. (Add a little water if needed.)

3. Heat oil in a medium saucepan over high heat. When very hot, add spice paste and cook, stirring until paste is cooked and beginning to separate from the oil, about 5 minutes.

4. When ready to make soup, combine broth and spice paste: Add cooked spice paste to broth, bring to a simmer and cook 10 minutes. Then cut the heat and stir in lime juice. Season to taste with fish sauce, soy sauce, and salt.

5. Prepare your toppings. Cook noodles according to package directions, which usually is soak in hot water for 10 minutes then drain and rinse under cool water. Chop celery leaves and herbs, and make 7-minute eggs.

6. Serving: To serve, divide noodles in large soup bowls with chopped chicken on top. Ladle soup on top and sprinkle with celery leaves or herbs, and fried shallots. Pass lime and sambal at the table.