Soto Johor / Mee Soto - (MFF-Johor) #3

I cooked this as my 3rd submission of Johor month. This Soto Johor recipe is Parit Tengah Version.

Mee Soto noodle soup dish is very commonly found in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. This is one of the Javanese influenced dish, and the word soto refers to Indonesian soup. And I'm not feeling shame to tell you that I'm actually drooling while I'm writing this post. Darn!

My favorite part of eating soto is to mix em' with hot chilli soy sauce, also known as Kicap Cili. It is a simple blend of chillies, bird's eye chillies, garlic, sweet soy sauce, and lime juice. The garlicky Kicap Cili somehow adds extra depth to the flavors of the whole soup dish and gives it the drool-factor! Yea, I'm salivating while I'm trying to describe it. Now look at this photo... this is the one with Kicap Cili in there :)

The ingredient list is quite long. The ingredients for the soup base, the noodles, the garnishing, accompaniments and also the Kicap Cili. But this recipe is a real stuff! So, I kinda feel proud of myself that I actually did it. Hahaha...

Ingredients  - Serves 6 adult
(Recipe Source : Selera Malaya, with minor changes)

For Soup
A
½ Fresh Chicken
1 Chicken Carcass / Chicken Backbone
2.5L Water, or more if you want
1½ tbsp Salt, or adjust to suit your taste
1 tbsp Sugar, or adjust to suit your taste
3 tbsp Cooking Oil

B (Grind everything into paste)
1 Onion (Bawang Besar)
3 to 4 bulbs Shallot (Bawang Merah)
5 cloves Garlic (Bawang Putih)
2 inch Ginger (Halia)
½ inch Tumeric (Kunyit Hidup)
½ inch Galangal (Lengkuas)
1 stalk Lemongrass (Serai), 1 inch from the bottom part. 

C
3 pcs Star Anise (Bunga Lawang)
5 pcs Cardamom (Pelage)
1 stick Cinnamon (Kulit Kayu Manis)
3 pcs Cloves (Bunga Cengkih)

D
3 tsp Coriander Seed (Ketumbar Biji)
2 tsp Fennel (Jintan Manis)
1 tsp Cumin (Jintan Putih)
1 tsp White Pepper (Lada Putih)

Lot's of ingredients. I know. I prepare all these spices a day in advance. So that my burden won't be that heavy on my cooking day.

These are Ingredient C for the soup. And I'd say, without them, the soup would lost it's soul.

Method 

1. Heat up some oil, add in (B) and fry till fragrant.
2. Add in (C), continue to fry until (B) looks dry.
3. Add in (D), fry until all the aroma is all over your kitchen.
4. Add in 2.5L water, and then add in chicken and chicken carcass / chicken backbone. 
5. Once water is boiled, add salt and sugar to flavor the soup. Taste, adjust to your preferred liking. 
6. And then, turn fire into medium low heat and let it slowly simmer for about 1 hour 30mins or so, so that the flavor of the spices will gives good aroma to the soup and also the chicken.
7. Once the time is up, heat off, dish up the chicken, let the chicken slightly cooled. And then tear the chicken meat into pieces. Set aside.  
8. I want clean soup on my noodles. So, I dish up all the chicken carcass / chicken backbones, pour the soup over to my slow cooker. Discard the residue sunken at the bottom of the soup pot. Re-heat the soup for later use.

For Noodles
1kg Vermicelli (Beehoon) or mixture of both Vermicelli and Yellow Noodles.
Chicken Meat (Chicken from the soup), tear it into small pieces
150 - 200g Bean Sprout, pluck away the end part

For Garnishing and Accompaniments 
Some Celery Leaves (Daun Sup)
30 to 50g Fried Shallots (Bawang Goreng)
6 Fried Potato Patty - Begedil (Optional)
6 small hard boiled eggs (Optional)

I having hard time hunting for this celery leaves. For those who don't know, Malay call these Daun Sup, usually used to sprinkle on top of soup dishes as part of the garnishing. When I go to my nearby wet market and ask for Daun Sup, nobody understand me! Luckily Giant super mart is not too faraway from my residence. Just 3 mins drive away, and I got it :)

For Spicy Black Chilli Sauce
4 Red Chillies
3 Green Chillies
3 Red Bird's Eye Chillies
2 Green Bird's Eye's Chillies
1 Clove Garlic
100ml Sweet Soy Sauce (Kicap Manis)
1 Lime, extract the juice
1 tsp Sugar
1 tsp Salt

This is really easy. Just remove the seeds from the chillies, mix all the ingredients together in a blender and blend it away! It is so easy until I don't even wanna spent too much time to write it. Haha..

To serve :

1. Boil a pot of water, cook the noodles together with bean sprout. Drain. 
2. Place cooked noodles and bean sprout on a bowl. Add in chicken meat, and pour the hot soup over. 
3. Garnish with daun sup, fried shallots, Begedil and hard boiled eggs. And yes! Kicap Cili! 

Ooohh.. I'm so so so in love with Mee Soto. I'm so so so glad that I did it at home :)

Happy cooking! :D

Do refer to Begedil Recipe here.