Soups and Soto

Soups are usually eaten as a side dish or eaten solo poured over a big bowl of rice for a light lunch. In the Indonesian lexicon, there are two types of dishes we might call soup in English. Soto (also called coto and sroto) and sup. Two things distinguish soto from sup: First, soto tends to be richly spiced and can be clear (Soto Ayam) or made cloudy with coconut milk (Soto Babat). Sup is almost always brothy and clear (for example, Sup Buntut). And second, soto is an Indonesian original, in contrast to the sup dishes that are Dutch or European influenced.