Poached chicken does not sound like it packs a flavor punch. That’s why most of us roast or grill chicken to create flavor and a crispy skin. But what if I told you that there is a technique that starts with poached chicken but ends with big flavors?

First, a word about Indonesian cuisine. It may be the most difficult cuisine in the world to describe given the massive diversity of the culture with 600 ethnic groups and over 6,000 populated islands out of a total of 17,000. Trade, a key part of the economy, also brought with it other influences including Sumatra, the Middle East, India, Java, China (noodles, of course, wontons and spring rolls), and Polynesia to name a few.

Although there are over 5,000 recipes that can be considered Indonesian, a few dozen are the most recognizable including soto ayam, the soup we are discussing here, satay, rendang (meat in coconut milk and spices), nasi goreng (fried rice), and gado-gado (salad with peanut sauce). You might also come across, among other dishes, a local version of congee, and rice cakes cooked in banana leaves and served in a coconut broth. The common thread is the sophisticated use of
spices and other high-flavor ingredients such as galangal, makrut lime leaves, and fried garlic/shallots which turns simple dishes into something special.

“It’s crazy because we have around 49 different varieties of soto in Indonesia. Beef, offal, chicken... For soto ayam, the most popular one, there are around seven varieties,” says chef and cookbook author Petty Pandean-Elliott. She grew up in Java, where soto ayam is an everyday dish. Within the province, many towns have their own combination of spices and/or toppings that make their soto ayam distinct.

One of our favorite recipes at Milk Street is chicken soup. Since every culture has their own version, it tells us a lot about how cooks think about combining ingredients. To understand how soto ayam comes together in the kitchen, we turned to the charming Erida Wahyuningsih in Yogyakarta; the core principle of her chicken soup recipe, soto ayam, is bumbu dasar kuning, a spice paste which is made in the blender and then fried in oil and finally added to the soup. A few last-minute vegetables can also be thrown in for a heartier meal.

Frying the spice paste is non-negotiable, says Pandean-Elliott: “It's like making Italian or French soup—you always caramelize the onion first. That's the base.”

Our first step was the chicken and we went with skin-on, bone-in to add flavor – the chicken is poached in water, not stock, and the chicken skin fortifies the final broth. (We also threw in the green portions of lemongrass.) The spice paste calls for lemon grass, shallots, garlic, ginger, cashews, coriander, peppercorns, ground turmeric, makrut leaves (if using) and ½ cup water. The paste is blended and then fried in a nonstick skillet with a couple of tablespoons of neutral oil for a few minutes. The poached chicken is removed, carrots and the spice paste are added and the soup is simmered for a few minutes. When the carrots are tender, add the cabbage and the now-shredded chicken. Serve with remaining sliced cabbage and scallions and lime wedges. It can also be served with white rice.

A few ingredient notes. Fried shallot are often added as well but this is optional. We also tested using galangal which is hard to find (we omitted it) but makrut lime leaves offer a mix of bright citrus (lemon/lime) with sweet, floral, and earthy notes that are common in Southeast Asian cuisine. These may be hard to source so we serve this soup with a squeeze of lime juice to compensate.

Chris Kimball

Christopher Kimball is founder of Milk Street, which produces Milk Street Magazine, Milk Street Television on PBS, and the weekly public radio show Milk Street Radio. He founded Cook’s Magazine in 1980 and was host and executive producer of America’s Test Kitchen until 2016. Kimball is the author of several books, including "The Yellow Farmhouse" and "Fannie’s Last Supper."

Ari Smolin

Ari Smolin writes and edits for Milk Street’s magazine and cookbooks. Before joining the team, she baked her way from Brooklyn to Los Angeles—laminating croissants before dawn, shepherding sourdough loaves by the hundreds, and discovering that stone-milled flour plus seasonal fruit is her happy place. She writes about whole-grain baking as well, most recently co-authoring “Morning Baker: Recipes and Rituals for Breakfast and Beyond.” You can find her fruit-and-grain escapades on Instagram @Ari.Smolin. Want to talk flour? Drop her a line at ari.smolin@gmail.com.