This is probably the first Indonesian recipe that I learnt since I came to Singapore. Soto betawi has always been one of my top favorite Indonesian food. Unfortunately, Indonesian restaurants in Singapore very seldom serve this, therefore, I had to take matters into my own hands and learn to make it by myself.
It doesn't have to taste the best, as long as it's acceptable and edible, it will do, at least that's what I thought when I first learnt this recipe. But, it has been years since I learnt the basics on making this beef stew, and the original recipe has had changes here and there, based on what I think would be better. Now, I think my soto betawi tastes pretty good, not to blow my own horn :D.
To make a good stew, it takes time, yes, but the steps are actually really simple. Anybody can do it. If If I can do it, so can you, right?
So here are the things you need.
Basically, you can use any part of the beef you like; meat. tendon, tongue, tripe, whichever you like, but this time I'm using the brisket and tendon to give the soup a ton of flavor since I'm not using any beef bones to make the broth. But, whatever your choice of beef is, I strongly suggest that you'd also include the tendon as it is fun to eat :D. Tender, sweet, falls apart in your mouth, simply heaven.
The next best thing to also include here is the beef tongue, small cubes of beef tongue. If you've never had one before, you don't know what you're missing, this is a must try from all parts of the beef! Don't worry, whatever fear you have on eating this part of the cow, the ingredients I'm about to share is a match made in heaven to cook beef tongue with. A sure success! You will have a pleasant experience. (Let's hope I don't over sell).
Cinnamon and clove is the dynamic duo I always include when I'm cooking red meat. They are just superb together, never disappoint. You can cook red meat with any ingredient, but these two are the basic aromatics, a must to ensure the end result to taste fantastic. If there's anything I'm willing to bet my life on, it's this! Trust me :D.
I'd like to say that I only give the best of suggestions, and these are the best knowledge I know in life, or in cooking.
Now, I don't know the science behind this but if you can get your hands on some Indonesian cloves, that would be best, as they smell the best (in my opinion, I may be biased here :P), compared to cloves from other countries. But if this is not possible, then any type of clove will do.
Nutmeg is not my favorite spice, but to give the stew that earthy characteristic, you need this, not too much though, a little goes a long way.
Evaporated milk is very popular in Singapore. It is often added into coffee, tea, curry, and so on. Evaporated milk is actually canned milk which has 60% of its water content removed. No sugar is added into it, so it tastes pretty much like milk, only more concentrated.
But, if you do not have this on hand, the next best thing is fresh milk.
This is my favorite brand of coconut cream, but you can use any other brand that you like. I use coconut cream here, but you can use coconut milk if that is what you have available, however the measurements may differ.
Coconut cream tastes the same as coconut milk, but coconut cream is more concentrated. So, if you do decide to use coconut milk, just add more into the soup.
I forgot to include this last ingredient in the original posting, thank goodness someone asked and reminded me :). Thank you.
This is not included in the original recipe I first studied, of course, but one day I decided to experiment. And turns out, this seasoning helps enhance the flavor, but the key is to put in just enough. Never too much.
So here are the steps.
1. Put a pot of water on medium to low heat. How much water? Enough to cover the meat and to make soup with, I don't have exact measurements :).
2. As the water starts to boil, chuck in the meat and let them simmer in low heat. We will see a lot of the impurities starting to come out and float on the water surface, skim these, and keep repeating the process as you see more impurities coming out.
3. When the broth starts to clear, we can start adding the aromatics/spices and seasonings. First step is to add the cinnamon sticks and cloves, plus salt.
4. Keep it in low heat, simmer until the meat starts to become tender and add in more water if it starts to recede. As the meat just starting to become fork tender, we can add the evaporated milk, coconut cream and nutmeg.
5. Add in the soto betawi packet seasoning last when the meat is ready, usually this will be about 3 hours from when you started cooking. I only use 1/2 sachet of the seasoning, instead of the whole thing. Because, I find adding in too much of the seasoning, gives the stew a weird taste. I don't know the rationales in that, but I learnt that adding just 1/2 sachet is enough.
Don't forget to taste, if you like it salty, feel free to add in more salt.
For the chili sauce, the steps are very simple.
1. Boil the big red chili, chili padi and garlic with some salt until they are tender.
2. Pound them together until they are well incorporated.
I personally like them to still have a little bit of texture, not too fine. It just looks better :)
I love this chili sauce, because it's so multi-functional, and very easy to make. I can use this to eat and cook anything; fried rice, stir fry veggies, stir fry noodle, and anything else you can come up with.
And now the stew is ready!
Serve it together with the chili sauce and other condiments; lime juice, cut spring onions, chopped tomato, emping/melinjo chips, sweet soy sauce and fried shallots. In Indonesia, usually we'd like to also add 1/2 teaspoon of ghee-a type of clarified butter-to make it more fragrant and to give the soup more body. But, to serve it without is also okay. Today, I'm making the slightly healthier version, ghee free, and it still tastes yummy.
Eat it together with a plate of warm rice, on a rainy day, PERFECT! Be careful not to overeat. Yes, it is THAT good.
If you have time, feel free to watch the full video below.
This recipe is one of my favorite, and a favorite amongst my friends and family as well. They are always impressed whenever I cook this, because they imagine the process to be very tedious and complicated, when it's really not. So, I hope you are encouraged to try it out, and please let me know how it goes.
Thanks for tuning in and have a tasty day!
The complete recipe:
1 kg beef (tendon, brisket)
6 cm cinnamon
7 cloves
4tsp salt
1 tsp nutmeg
1/2 sachet Soto Betawi seasoning
200 ml evaporated milk
150 coconut cream
For the chili sauce:
9 cloves garlic
7 big red chili
6 chili padi
1 tbsp salt
Condiments:
Lime juice
Chopped tomato
Chopped spring onions
Emping/melinjo chips
Fried shallots
Sweet soy sauce, preferably Bango
Ghee (optional)
It doesn't have to taste the best, as long as it's acceptable and edible, it will do, at least that's what I thought when I first learnt this recipe. But, it has been years since I learnt the basics on making this beef stew, and the original recipe has had changes here and there, based on what I think would be better. Now, I think my soto betawi tastes pretty good, not to blow my own horn :D.
To make a good stew, it takes time, yes, but the steps are actually really simple. Anybody can do it. If If I can do it, so can you, right?
So here are the things you need.
Basically, you can use any part of the beef you like; meat. tendon, tongue, tripe, whichever you like, but this time I'm using the brisket and tendon to give the soup a ton of flavor since I'm not using any beef bones to make the broth. But, whatever your choice of beef is, I strongly suggest that you'd also include the tendon as it is fun to eat :D. Tender, sweet, falls apart in your mouth, simply heaven.
The next best thing to also include here is the beef tongue, small cubes of beef tongue. If you've never had one before, you don't know what you're missing, this is a must try from all parts of the beef! Don't worry, whatever fear you have on eating this part of the cow, the ingredients I'm about to share is a match made in heaven to cook beef tongue with. A sure success! You will have a pleasant experience. (Let's hope I don't over sell).
Cinnamon and clove is the dynamic duo I always include when I'm cooking red meat. They are just superb together, never disappoint. You can cook red meat with any ingredient, but these two are the basic aromatics, a must to ensure the end result to taste fantastic. If there's anything I'm willing to bet my life on, it's this! Trust me :D.
I'd like to say that I only give the best of suggestions, and these are the best knowledge I know in life, or in cooking.
Now, I don't know the science behind this but if you can get your hands on some Indonesian cloves, that would be best, as they smell the best (in my opinion, I may be biased here :P), compared to cloves from other countries. But if this is not possible, then any type of clove will do.
Nutmeg is not my favorite spice, but to give the stew that earthy characteristic, you need this, not too much though, a little goes a long way.
Evaporated milk is very popular in Singapore. It is often added into coffee, tea, curry, and so on. Evaporated milk is actually canned milk which has 60% of its water content removed. No sugar is added into it, so it tastes pretty much like milk, only more concentrated.
But, if you do not have this on hand, the next best thing is fresh milk.
This is my favorite brand of coconut cream, but you can use any other brand that you like. I use coconut cream here, but you can use coconut milk if that is what you have available, however the measurements may differ.
Coconut cream tastes the same as coconut milk, but coconut cream is more concentrated. So, if you do decide to use coconut milk, just add more into the soup.
I forgot to include this last ingredient in the original posting, thank goodness someone asked and reminded me :). Thank you.
This is not included in the original recipe I first studied, of course, but one day I decided to experiment. And turns out, this seasoning helps enhance the flavor, but the key is to put in just enough. Never too much.
So here are the steps.
1. Put a pot of water on medium to low heat. How much water? Enough to cover the meat and to make soup with, I don't have exact measurements :).
2. As the water starts to boil, chuck in the meat and let them simmer in low heat. We will see a lot of the impurities starting to come out and float on the water surface, skim these, and keep repeating the process as you see more impurities coming out.
3. When the broth starts to clear, we can start adding the aromatics/spices and seasonings. First step is to add the cinnamon sticks and cloves, plus salt.
4. Keep it in low heat, simmer until the meat starts to become tender and add in more water if it starts to recede. As the meat just starting to become fork tender, we can add the evaporated milk, coconut cream and nutmeg.
5. Add in the soto betawi packet seasoning last when the meat is ready, usually this will be about 3 hours from when you started cooking. I only use 1/2 sachet of the seasoning, instead of the whole thing. Because, I find adding in too much of the seasoning, gives the stew a weird taste. I don't know the rationales in that, but I learnt that adding just 1/2 sachet is enough.
Don't forget to taste, if you like it salty, feel free to add in more salt.
For the chili sauce, the steps are very simple.
1. Boil the big red chili, chili padi and garlic with some salt until they are tender.
2. Pound them together until they are well incorporated.
I personally like them to still have a little bit of texture, not too fine. It just looks better :)
I love this chili sauce, because it's so multi-functional, and very easy to make. I can use this to eat and cook anything; fried rice, stir fry veggies, stir fry noodle, and anything else you can come up with.
And now the stew is ready!
Serve it together with the chili sauce and other condiments; lime juice, cut spring onions, chopped tomato, emping/melinjo chips, sweet soy sauce and fried shallots. In Indonesia, usually we'd like to also add 1/2 teaspoon of ghee-a type of clarified butter-to make it more fragrant and to give the soup more body. But, to serve it without is also okay. Today, I'm making the slightly healthier version, ghee free, and it still tastes yummy.
Eat it together with a plate of warm rice, on a rainy day, PERFECT! Be careful not to overeat. Yes, it is THAT good.
If you have time, feel free to watch the full video below.
This recipe is one of my favorite, and a favorite amongst my friends and family as well. They are always impressed whenever I cook this, because they imagine the process to be very tedious and complicated, when it's really not. So, I hope you are encouraged to try it out, and please let me know how it goes.
Thanks for tuning in and have a tasty day!
The complete recipe:
1 kg beef (tendon, brisket)
6 cm cinnamon
7 cloves
4tsp salt
1 tsp nutmeg
1/2 sachet Soto Betawi seasoning
200 ml evaporated milk
150 coconut cream
For the chili sauce:
9 cloves garlic
7 big red chili
6 chili padi
1 tbsp salt
Condiments:
Lime juice
Chopped tomato
Chopped spring onions
Emping/melinjo chips
Fried shallots
Sweet soy sauce, preferably Bango
Ghee (optional)
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