Modified Kudus Soto

Today Christian asked me to make chicken soto. However, I felt bored with just ordinary chicken soto. I remembered my sister once sent me a recipe of Kudus "Denuh" soto (it is a name of chicken soto restaurant in Kudus, Central Java, I think Denuh is the owner). Then I went through my yahoo inbox and found that email with the recipe in it. It seemed a bit complicated to me, therefore I decided to modify it. I told Christian that I am going to make Kudus soto, something new for him...:)

Ingredients:
- 3 whole chicken leg
- 8 cloves of small red onion
- 6 cloves of garlic
- 8 pcs candle nut (kemiri-Indonesian)
- 1 tsp white pepper
- 1 Tbsp ground coriander
- 1 Tbsp ground cumin
- 1.5 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1 tsp shrimp paste (terasi-Indonesian)
- 3cm ginger
- 2cm turmeric
- 3cm galangal
- 1/3 block/cylinder palm sugar
- salt
- 2.5lt water
- frying oil

Complementary dish:
- boiled bean sprout
- 3 boiled eggs
- 3 potato, slice and fry until brownish
- fried Melinjo crackers (Gnetum gnemon)
- crushed chili with candle nut (ratio 5:1) mix with warm water = sambal-Indonesian
- lime
- sweet soy sauce

Garnish:
- wild/garden celery, finely chop
- fried onion
- fried garlic


In a pot put the chicken, salt and water, bring it to boil. Continue cooking until the chicken tender. Drain the chicken and fry it until brownish. Shred the chicken meat.
Put aside the chicken and the broth as well.
In a blender, blend all the ingredients except galangal and palm sugar until smooth. Saute the blended smooth spices for 2minutes. Pour it into the broth which is put on low heat. Add the galangal and palm sugar. Continue to cook until boiling.
To serve, in a bowl put some steam rice. Then on top of the rice, put the shredded fried chicken and pour the soto (broth+spices). Add the complementary dish and garnish.

PS: some people like to add cooked bean sprout too, but this time I do not have it. The real Kudus soto normally does not come with the egg and potato. It usually comes with sambal kecap (mix of sweet soy sauce and crushed chilli).