Surinamese Soup
SAOTO
INGREDIENTS – BROTH
1 pound chicken breast, boneless
1 small onion
3 garlic cloves
1 lemongrass stalk
1″ galangal root
4 cups chicken broth
4 cups water
3 berries allspice
1 Indonesian bay or bay leaf
2 teaspoons soy sauce
INGREDIENTS – REST
1 stalk celery
½ pound rice vermicelli
6 hard boiled eggs
½ pound bean sprouts
2 cups shredded cabbage
2 teaspoons sambal kecap, sambal oelek, or sriracha
½ cup shoestring potatoes
½ cup crispy fried onions
SPECIAL UTENSIL
spice grinder
Serves 6. Takes 1 hour 45 minutes.
PREPARATION – BROTH
Cut chicken into 2″ cubes. Dice onion. Mince garlic cloves. Mince inner green part of lemongrass. Use spice grinder to grind galangal into little bits. Add chicken broth and water to large pot. Bring to boil using high heat. Add chicken cubes, galangal, onion, garlic, lemongrass, allspice, bay leaf, and soy sauce to large pot. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 1 hour. Remove chicken cubes with slotted spoon. Shred chicken using two forks.
PREPARATION – REST
Which broth simmers, dice celery. Break rice vermicelli into manageable lengths. Slice eggs in two. Add 2 egg halves to each soup bowl and an equal amount of bean sprouts, celery, cabbage, rice vermicelli, sambal, and chicken to each bowl. Ladle an equal amount of broth into bowls. Garnish with shoestring potatoes, and crispy fried onion
TIDBITS
1) Once upon a time lived three squirrels called Berry, Onion, and Galangal.
2) They all lived in their own tidbits in the far-off land of Surinam.
3) They loved to eat Saoto.
4) But the soup, Saoto, required chicken broth.
5) But this was long ago. (See tidbit 1.) There were no supermarkets. So they couldn’t go down Aisle 7 and fill up their cart with chicken broth. What to do? What to do?
6) “Why not encourage that roving herd of feral chickens to take baths in our little tide pool?” said Berry.
7) “Yes, yes.” Onion flapped her little wings in excitement and actually flew 239 feet. This would be a record that would stand for millennia.
8) Onion flapped her way back. Berry and Galangal spent the time looking for worms.
9) “Well,” said Onion. “If the chickens spend enough time in the tide pool, we can use the water as chicken broth.
10) It was at this time, Berry and Galangal pointed out to Onion, that he was, indeed, a squirrel and couldn’t have taken to the sky flapping chicken wings.
11) “Well,” squeaked Onion, “you’re not chickens either. You’re squirrels. You shouldn’t be eating worms. Shame on you.”
12) Stronger words were soon squeaked. Fur flew so freely that it blotted out the sky.” This was the first solar fur eclipse.
13) There have been exactly sixteen such eclipses since then.
14) The author is taking advantage of the squirrel fight to find out if squirrels are vegetarian.
15) No they are not. Although they primarily nuts and such stuff, they will chow down on meat if the opportunity arises.
16) However, I suppose a squirrel could remain a vegetarian for life. It could even be vegan. I mean how, on Earth, are squirrels going to milk a cow?
17) Anyway, Berry, Onion, and Galangal having established themselves as omnivores, secure once more in their squirrelness, and realizing that their time in Tidbit Land was nearing the bottom of the page, made themselves some yummy Saoto soup.
18) And they all lived happily ever after.
– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
Paul De Lancey's Blog 