Saoto Soup – no Maggi cubes

Saoto soup – no maggi cubes, all 100% homemade to make the best soup.

Saoto soup is a traditional Suriname soup that consists of chicken broth with vegetables and spices usually served with a bowl of steamed rice.

The Suriname saoto soup is a variant of the original Soto soup introduced to Suriname by Javanese migrants. Soto soup is a traditional Indonesian soup.

I had saoto soup for the first time, a couple of years ago in The Netherlands and I loved it. So some months ago I started doing some research to cook it at home.

What I love about cooking new things at home is that you can make all 100% homemade. That is why I was surprised that ALL the recipes I found on the internet use maggi cubes. I never used them and I will never do.

I do not like using this kind of products in my kitchen as they are really high in sodium and I can not know what kind of fresh ingredients they used to produce them.

As I was not going to use maggi cubes I decided to experiment at home to make a really nice chicken broth on the slow cooker. Full of flavour and 100% homemade.

After a couple of trials I found the perfect recipe to make a really nice and full of flavour chicken broth. REAL 100% HOMEMADE BROTH with no maggi cubes 😉

We will use that to make the best saoto soup at home with no maggi cubes.

Let’s start!

Saoto Soup – No Maggi cubes

Recipe by Enara ParraCourse: SoupCuisine: SurinameseDifficulty: Medium

Servings

4

servings

Prep time

40

minutes

Cooking time

22

hours 

Ingredients

• Broth:

• 2-3 chicken bones

• ¼ cabbage

• 1 onion peeled and halved

• 2 garlic cloves

• ½ leek

• 1 carrot peeled

• 1,5 litres of water

• Saoto soup:

• 700 ml broth

• 500 ml water

• 2 chicken breast

• 2 pieces of fresh laos (1 cm each)

• 1 piece fresh ginger (1 cm)

• 1 stalk lemongrass

• 1 Indonesian bay leaf

• 2 whole allspice berries (pimenta) or 1/2 teaspoon allspice powder

• ½ onion

• 1 garlic clove

• 1 teaspoon soy sauce

• Salt

• Garnish:

• 4 hard boiled eggs

• 1 cup bean sprouts

• Fried potato strings

• Fried vermicelli

• Fried onion

• Chopped parsley

• Sambal ketjap

• 2 cups steam boiled rice

Directions

• Broth:
• Preheat the oven to 250ºC.
• Place chicken bones on a baking tray and roast for 20 minutes.
• Place roasted bones, juices from the baking tray, and the rest of the ingredients in the slow cooker.
• Cook for 20 hours on LOW.
• Strain the broth and store it in a container. Let cool before refrigerating. Refrigerate for 6-8 hours so the fat solidifies on the surface. Remove the fat using a spoon.
• Saoto soup:
• Place the broth and the water in a large pot and bring to boil.
• Add the chicken, laos, onion, garlic, lemongrass, bay leaf, ginger, allspice, and soy sauce.
• Remove the chicken after 20 minutes and let the soup simmer for 20 minutes more in low heat. Add more salt if needed. When the soup is ready, remove all the vegetables (onion, garlic, lemongrass…) and discard them.
• Shred the chicken with your finger or using a fork.
• Peel the eggs.
• Assembly:
• In a large soup bowl add some chicken, 1 boiled egg, some bean sprouts. Pour the warm soup broth over and top with some fried vermicelli, potato, onion, and chopped parsley.
• Serve with a small bowl of steamed rice and some sambal ketjap if you like it spicy.

Notes

• You can make the broth on the slow cooker in advance and freeze it in a sealed container.
• I always cook vermicelli, onion, and potato at home. Just fry them in hot olive oil.