It is originated in Indonesia. It is also popular in Malaysia and Singapore. 

Soto is one of my favourite food.

Soto is a chicken soup laden with spices and eaten with nasi impit or compressed rice, garnished with spring onion, bawang goreng (crispy fried onions) and begedil. 

To make it spicy, we can eat with dips knowns as sambal kicap, it is a soy sauce together with cut birds eye chilli and red onion. 

This is the way that I used to serve my family members. 

Various ways of Preparing The Soup

Starting with the soup, beef soup can also be used as the main soup. 

The soup can be varied from one recipe to another and usually in Malaysia the soup is clear. 

In Singapore, the soup is a mixture of lemongrass, coconut milk and spices such as star anise, cardamom,  cinnamon stick. They commonly used Krupuk as the topping.  

While in Indonesia, the Soto are varied from one location to the other. 

They have Soto Bandung, Soto Medan, Soto Kikil Surabaya. They named it according to the location of the place in their state. 

For me, this is one of the versatile dishes. It can be paired also with yellow noodles and shredded chicken. 

Origin of Soto

There was a narrative mention Soto is actually one of the dishes which is come from the palace. 

The Ruler at that time fell sick and was served with chicken soup and rice. But it was difficult for him to eat the meal. He requested to add ketupat to the dish. 

Ketupat is almost similar to nasi impit. It is a rice-based meal that is cooked in woven coconut leaves. 

Since then, the dish became one of The Ruler favourite dishes and it was given its name Sroto origin from the word, Suap Ratu or in English, “served by the Queen”. 

The name was later changed to Soto. 

Conclusion 

Despite it is origin, Malaysian love to serve Soto too, especially during Hari Raya Aidlifitri. As we have come from the same root. 🙂

I had written the recipe in length with my own way of cooking.

Malaysian Beef Soup Soto.