Soto Kudus

Kudus literally means holy in bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian language), this also refer to a name of town in Central Java. And Soto Kudus is kinda chicken soup which originally came from that small town. The things which distinguish this soup from any other chicken soto are the use of a lot of fried garlic and the addition of cumin and nutmeg, which give specific aroma. You may find a lot of side dishes that served in the warung, where this soto is sold, including: sate kerang (cockle on skewer), sate telor puyuh (quail eggs on skewer), perkedel (potato fritter/mashed potato frikadel), tempe goreng (fried tempeh, with or without batter), krupuk rambak (cow's skin cracker), etc. I personally like the cockle on skewer and cow's skin cracker. But it's kinda hard to find those stuff here, so I just prepared some fried tofu and tempeh as side dish.

Ingredients:
- 3 whole chicken leg
- 8 cloves of small red onion/shallot
- 8 cloves of garlic
- 8 pcs candle nut (kemiri-Indonesian)
- 1 tsp ground 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
- crushed chili with sweet soy sauce (sambal kecap)
- lime
- fried tofu
- fried tempeh

Garnish:
- Asian celery, finely chop
- fried garlic

Directions:
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 top it of with the shredded fried chicken and pour the hot soto (broth+spices). Add the complementary dish and garnish.

A bonus picture of the potato fritter.