Cooking Story Part 1: Javanese Chicken Soup (Recipe and hints)

For me, cooking is the greatest art over across the universe. I think I am falling in love with great food taste. I�ve been starting cooking for since I was kid. Mom used to ask me to help for cooking. I thought cooking is boring, but I wrong. Its amazing to taste delicious art melt in your mouth. I like cooking because I like eating. Actually, I started cook everyday because cooking makes my living cost cheaper! :D


I went places for tasting various culinary from different cultures . Somehow, tasting spices and identifying those in my mind increases my curiousity to cook. I failed so many time because foods weren�t tasted delicious but I learned many things. I believe everybody can cook, even better than me.


I remember when I was in college, I used to watch Julie and Julia Movie and Julia Child's cooking show during dinner. She was so energetic, so humble, so humorous, so impressive, so instructive. She really knows how to cook with fun and resulted perfect arts. She was even better than chefs in Masterchef Indonesia reality show. They cook soo serious and judge contestants arrogantly. Tongues are different. Can�t we make cooking fun?

This is first time I write about cooking. I write about Indonesian Chicken Soup cooking. Simplest recipe for beginner, but wasn�t that simple for me. I cooked chicken soup many times, resulted many tastes of soup. First of all, for 4 portions, Indonesian chicken soup needs carrots, cabage, stringbean, spring onion, celery and of course, chicken. To make the gravy, you need water,salt, chicken (for stock), fried onion slices, red onion slices, and peppers. If you dont want to fry the onion ist okay, but i suggest you to fry it before you put it to the water. The taste would be more delicous. I can say, onion is the prime spice of indonesian food. After the water boiled, you can put the vegetables to the gravy. Wait 3 minutes, dont be too long, otherwise the vegetables nutrition would be lost.

Hints;
� Always begin with cold water, never warm or hot.

� When tasting to adjust flavors, use a stainless steel spoon, not a wooden or sterling silver spoon. Wood and silver disguise flavor on the tongue.

� If you must avoid salt, know that the flavor will be greatly diminished. Adding no-salt or low-sodium broth concentrate will help.

� Don't turn your nose up at this: Chicken feet add not only robust flavor, but gelatinous body to the soup. Fresh chicken feet need to be scalded about five minutes so the skin and toenails can be removed before adding to the stockpot. Calf feet, veal knuckles and beef marrow bones achieve the same goal. Bones also leach nutritious calcium and minerals into the soup.

� If at all possible, do not use chicken that has been frozen. Freezing forces moisture from the tissues. When the bird is thawed, all that moisture ends up down the drain, leaving a dry and tasteless chicken.

� Unthawed frozen vegetables should not be added to the soup until the last 15 minutes of cooking time.

� Don't let the soup boil. It should simmer very gently or the meat will become tough and the broth cloudy.

� Dark meat has more flavor than white meat. If you are using chicken parts rather than a whole chicken, keep this in mind. Using only all white meat will result in a much less flavorful result.

� For those concerned about fat, make the soup in two stages. Cook the chicken with its aromatic vegetables and herbs on one day. Strain the meat and flavorings from the broth. Refrigerate the broth until the fat solidifies on top. Save the fat for other uses or discard. Continue with the soup. Do keep in mind that the majority of the flavor is in the fat.

� If you are planning ahead, cook the chicken with vegetables and herbs. Freeze the strained stock. If your planned future use includes chicken meat, freeze the meat in the stock to keep it from drying out. You can later thaw and add fresh vegetables, pasta or rice.

� For a richer broth, remove the chicken from the bones as soon as it is tender and refrigerate. Add the bones back to the soup and continue simmering until desired strength is achieved. Strain and proceed.