Sayur Asem (Indonesian Sour Vegetable Soup) Recipe

This is a popular soup in Indonesia and Indonesian restaurants here in Singapore. When you eat Ayam Penyet (Smashed Fried Chicken) this soup is often served as an accompaniment. But most of the time it's so watered down and tasteless.

The recipe below is my Mum's recipe and because I don't have exact measurements the trick is to get a balance of Sweet, Sour and Salty. It's not like a Thai Tom Yum soup where the predominant flavour is Sour. Hopefully you've arrived at this page because you've tried Sayur Asem before and so know what the taste is supposed to be like. If you haven't tried it before, fret not, just season the soup and have it the way you like it. You like it more sour, add more tamarind, and if you like it more sweet, then add more palm sugar. Simple! You are the master of your own kitchen, don't be afraid to take risks and be adventurous and experiment!

You can use any combination of the below vegetables. These are what traditionally goes into it, with the corn on the cob as a must ingredient in my opinion. I also like young jackfruit, but I don't see it in Singapore supermarkets. Perhaps I would have to go look for it at the Malay fresh markets or find the canned versions perhaps at the Thai supermarkets. Melinjo or Bitter Nut I'm pretty sure is non existent in Singapore. Please comment below if you've ever seen it sold here!

This soup is also best made ahead of time in order for the flavours to develop and mingle around more. You can make it half a day to a day in advance and just reheat it when you want to eat it. And the beauty of this soup is it doesn't even have to be eaten hot!

Ingredients:
Corn on the Cob
Long Beans/Snake Beans
Carrots
Choko
Young Jackfruit
Cabbage
Melinjo Nuts and Leaves (Bitternut)

Bay Leaf
Galangal, 1 thumb size piece
Tamarind Paste
Salt
Palm Sugar
Belacan/Shrimp Paste

To Grind or pound in a pestle and mortar:
Candlenut, about 4 pieces to 2 litres of water
2-3 shallots
1 big red chilli

1. Put a stock pot on the stove and fill with water and turn on the heat. Don't over fill the pot as you'll be putting in the rest of your ingredients into the pot.
2. Place the Bay Leaf, Galangal, Salt, Palm Sugar and Belacan into the water. 
3. Place the grounded ingredients into the water as well.
4. Extract the juice from the tamarind by mixing water to the pulp and squeezing out all the juice with your hand. If you're using the paste type, then you can omit this step and just put a spoonful into the soup. 
5. At this stage go ahead and try the soup and see if the flavours are balanced. 
6. Cut up all the vegetables into bite sized pieces. The corn cut into small rounds, snakebeans cut into 1 inch pieces, carrots, choko, cabbage and young jackfruit can be cut into bite sized pieces. The melinjo if you are using is kept whole on the stem. 
7. Add all the cut up vegetables into the soup and cook until all is tender. Turn off heat and just let it all marinate together. Once ready to eat, you can just warm it up or even eat it at room temperature. 
8. Enjoy!

Jackfruit, Asam Paste, Melinjo Leaves and Nuts, Corn, Candlenuts, Carrots, Choko, Long Beans, Cabbage

This is the only Shrimp Paste I could find at the Supermarket, This is less pungent than the traditional Indonesian Shrimp Pastes.

Soto Betawi (Recipe)

This is a great traditional Indonesian beef soup that my Mum loves to make. It's always daunted me because with Indonesian food there's always a ton of spices to put in and honestly I'm just too lazy. But when I was in Brisbane, my sister in law made it and she said it was so easy and you don't need a lot of ingredients. So I searched the net for recipes and compared a few to see the similarities. I settled on this one and found it to be delicous! Now I can have Soto anytime I want :) No need to wait for Mama!

Tips: Find meat with a lot of sinew in it as it will make the tastiest meat in the soup. If you like in Singapore, you can find cheaper cuts of beef in the frozen meat section. You can also find tendon in the same section. If you choose to cook tendon, don't fret if you can't cut it with a knife...or anything else in your kitchen for that matter, because you're actually supposed to cut it after it's cooked, ie. after it become gelatinous. I also used a slow cooker for my soup, turned it on overnight and was ready for lunch the next day. Just remember not to cut your meat too small if you're using the slow cooker as it breaks down a lot and put the heat on low, not high. I cooked all the meat with the spices in the slow cooker, then when it was ready the next day I added the coconut milk and evaporated milk (instead of fresh milk so it was richer).