Tauto Pekalongan — Pekalongan, Indonesia

Tauto Pekalongan is a soup belonging to Indonesia's wide soto family, set apart by tauco, a fermented soybean paste, stirred into the broth to give it a dark brown color and a deep, savory-sour edge that plain soto lacks. Beef and beef offal sit in the broth alongside taro or potato, over a bed of rice cake. It is reported from Pekalongan, a city on Java's north coast with a well-established trading link to Chinese cooking, which is generally credited with introducing tauco into the local soup repertoire. It is eaten there as an everyday meal, at warungs and market stalls rather than as a festive dish reserved for special occasions. Preparation starts with a stock simmered from beef and offal such as tripe or lung, kept going for a couple of hours until well flavored. A spice paste of garlic, shallot, candlenut, ginger and galangal is fried until fragrant, the tauco is stirred in and cooked briefly to soften its edge, and the paste goes into the stock along with taro or potato, left to simmer until everything is tender. Chili, fried shallots and chives are added at the end or at the table. Differences from one bowl to the next come mostly from the balance of tauco to plain stock and the choice of offal: some cooks favor tripe and lung for a chewier bowl, others keep to beef alone, and the tauco itself can be milder or sharper depending on the batch used. The soup is generally ladled over rice cake or plain rice, with the level of chili left to the diner rather than fixed by the cook.