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Bakmi Ayam Bakso (Chicken Noodle Soup with Beef Balls, Indonesian Style) is a very popular dish back in my home country, Indonesia. You can literally find an eatery that serves a variant of this dish in every corner of large towns, especially in the capital city, Jakarta. Also interesting to note that each town and city has its own favorite best place for a dish of bakmi ayam. In Jakarta alone, I can remember maybe 4 to 5 places where I would routinely visit in the past to enjoy a bowl of yummy bakmi ayam.

To make this dish, we have to prepare three main components, the noodle, the accompanying cooked chicken and the soup.

Preparing the Noodle:

Get a good package of chinese noodle. For best result, don’t use the dry packaged noodle but rather get the ‘fresh’ noodle instead. I also like the ones that are thin and light color. Boil the noodle until soft. In a big bowl, mix vegetable oil, fish sauce and ground white pepper then in the warm noodle into the bowl. Mix well. Set aside.

Preparing the chicken:

I like to use chicken thighs, maybe legs. If you are concern about fat, you can either throw the skin part away or use chicken breast instead. For about 2 pounds of chicken, prepare 4 table spoon (yes, a lot) of chopped garlic and a tiny bit of chopped ginger. Cut the chicken meat into tiny chunks. Set aside the bones for making the soup later. In a wok, heat up about 2 table spoon of vegetable oil, then throw the chopped garlic and ginger in. In just 3 seconds or so, put in the chicken. Please don’t let the garlic and ginger turn brown or worse, burned! Wait till the chicken meat turn white then add 3 spoon of fish oil, a few dashes of white pepper, a few drops of cooking rice wine. Skip the rice wine if you rather not use alcoholic component. Add a half cup or so water, wait till the water boiled then turn the heat all the way down. Keep cooking the chicken for half an hour in low heat.

Preparing the Soup:

Boil a few cups of water and the chicken bones you set aside from the above step. Alternatively, you can also use chicken broth instead. Add beef balls into the soup. You can buy frozen beef balls at any asian supermarket. I like to use ‘tendon’ beef balls. Regular beef balls work as well. Keep boiling until the frozen beef balls are all thawed an turn soft. Add salt and ground white pepper to tast. Turn off the heat and immediately add some chopped chinese celery into the soup.

Serving:

In a serving bowl, put in the noodle. Add the some chicken on top. You can also drop some chopped scallion (green onions), mostly for garnishing purpose. On another, smaller, bowl, pour in the soup and a few beef balls. Serve the two bowls side by side.