Soto (Daging) Madura / Spiced Beef Soup from Madura, Indonesia

For those of you who have been following my blog and reading my recipes, you must somehow wonder why I post so many soto dishes recipes. Soto is a traditional Indonesian soup dish and we have so many variations of soto recipes from all over the places in Indonesia. Indonesia is a very big country and there are so many (I must say endless) dishes to explore and try. The main ingredient for soto can be chicken, beef or even seafood and it has to be cooked in low heat for a long time with lots of herbs and spices (as you can see below, the list of ingredients is very long and can be daunting for some people sometimes). There are so many condiments that we have to prepare too to accompany soto, so it really takes time to cook soto for most people.

For our family, soto is our comfort food as it is healthy, delicious and refreshing at the same time. I can cook different types of soto several times in a month and we will still love it, especially my husband who loves soto so much.

Today, I’m going to share beef soto from Madura, East Java which we really liked a lot. I also made lontong (rice cakes) to be eaten with soto. Usually, soto can be eaten with steamed rice or rice cakes, but for this dish, I chose to serve it with rice cakes. Traditionally, rice cake is made by wrapping the uncooked rice in banana leaves and cook it for hours, but today, I’m going to share a shortcut version of how to make delicious rice cakes by using a rice cooker only. It was so easy and we were so impressed with the smooth and soft texture of the rice cakes.

What differentiates this dish from other soto dishes? The authentic version of this dish is actually using uncooked rice blended together with some of the spices. So it will taste a little bit different from other beef soto but it is still very delicious. Poya powder which is made from finely ground shrimps crackers and fried garlic is also a must-have condiment to serve with this dish.

Ingredients:

1. 1 kg beef (I used shank beef cut)
2. 2 L of water
3. 5 tsp cooking oil
4. 2 tbsp uncooked white rice, soaked in tap water for 1 hour before using, then drain the water
5. 10 garlic
6. 6 shallots
7. 5 candlenuts, stir fry without oil until fragrant
8. 2 thumbs ginger, sliced
9. 2 thumbs galangal, sliced
10. 2 lemongrass, take the white parts and crushed
11. 1 tbsp turmeric powder
12. 1 tbsp ground coriander seeds
13. 1/2 tsp ground caraway seed (or substitute with ground fennel seed)
14. 5 salam or bay leaves
15. 8 lime leaves, shredded
16. 2 tbsp salt, or to taste
17. 1/2 tsp pepper, or to taste
18. 1 tbsp sugar

Other (condiments):

1. 4 tomatoes, cut each into 8 or
2. 8 hard-boiled eggs
3. 6 tbsp fried garlic, divided
4. 10 green onions, minced
5. poya powder
6. cooked mung bean sprouts
7. rice cakes (use store-bought or you can make ones yourself), or substitute with steam rice
8. home-made crispy potato chips (see how to make them in this post), or you can also substitute with prawn crackers, rice crackers, bitter belinjo crackers, etc)
9. freshly squeezed lime juice
10. Chili mixture (mix cut red chili with sweet soy sauce and lime juice)

To make poya powder:

1. 15 shrimps crackers, deep-fried
2. 15 minced garlic, fried until golden brown
3. 1/2 tsp sugar
4. 1/2 tsp salt

To make rice cakes using rice cooker:

1. 2 cups basmati rice
2. 6 cups of water

Method:

1. Blend all the poya ingredients in the food processor into fine crumbs and set them aside. Keep in a jar or plastic container and store in the bottom of the refrigerator (you can keep it for months)
2. To make rice cakes: wash the rice thoroughly and cook in a rice cooker. When the rice is cooked, immediately stir the rice using a large spatula until it is in soft consistency. Transfer to a plastic container and press hard, then let cool. Once it is cooled, cover with a lid and refrigerate overnight. Unmould and slice using a sharp knife. Reheat the rice cakes using a steamer before  serving
3. To blanch the beef, prepare a large pot and fill half the pot with water, then bring the water to boil in medium heat. Add all the beef (the water in the pot must cover the meat) and bring the water to boil again in medium heat and let the water keeps boiling for another 5 minutes. Turn off the heat. Discard the water and wash the meat one by one in running tap water
4. Prepare a large pot (you can cook on the stove, slow cooker, or electric soup cooker which I used to make this dish) and add water, beef chunks,  salam or bay leaves, lime leaves, salt, pepper, and sugar
5. Using a blender, process oil, garlic, shallots, candlenuts, ginger, galangal, lemongrass, and rice until smooth. Transfer to a wok and stir fry until fragrant and the mixture starts to dry. Add the ground turmeric, ground coriander, and ground caraway seeds and stir for another 30 seconds. Turn off the heat and transfer the mixture to the pot
6. Cook until the beef is soft and succulent. Add water if necessary if the water is reduced during the long cooking process. Turn off the heat
7. Add 2 tbsp poya powder, 3 tbsp fried garlic, and 5 minced green onions. Stir to mix and cover the pot for 5 minutes
8. Arrange beef soup with rice cakes, poya powder, more fried garlic, and minced green onions in serving bowls. Squeeze some lime juice and serve with crackers or homemade chips and chili mixture.