Chinese Hot Pot

Written By Stacy Tjoa
Chinese Hot Pot at Home

When fall and winter comes around, one big treat tends to pop into our minds - Chinese Hot Pot! It’s a warm, comforting and social meal to have with a close-knit group of family or friends. It’s easy since all the food gets cooked at the table, it’s an easy meal.

A Chinese friend, WangChen shared with me her favourite ingredients, sauces and dips from her country. In China, hot pot is a cold weather staple with hot pot restaurants ranging from casual to upscale. Many offer specialized regional hot pot experiences. There are restaurants specializing in Yunnan hot pot, Sze Chuan hot pot and even Japanese shabu-shabu.

We are also familiar with hotpots in Singapore but with local flavours like laksa. One of my favourite hot pot chains in Singapore is called Haidilao Hot Pot Restaurant 海底捞火锅. It is known for their superior service and dancing noodle pullers. Haidilao loosely translates to “scooping the bottom of the ocean” which is a pretty good metaphor for scooping your ladle through the pot for a fish ball or tofu.

What is it about?

Chinese Hot Pot is an interactive meal in which diners sit around a simmering pot of soup at the center of the table with various raw ingredients—meat, seafood, vegetables, tofu, and starches—in thin slices or small pieces for quick cooking.

Diners can add whatever they like to the boiling liquid. They can then retrieve cooked food items from the pot with wire ladles, and flavor them with individual dipping sauces


Singaporeans often eat hot pot for reunion dinners and I wrote more about Chinese New Year foods here if you’d like to browse through.

Ingredients

  • Hot pot soup base

LEAFY GREENS

  • Napa cabbage

  • Spinach

  • Watercress

  • Bak Choy

MUSHROOMS

  • Enoki mushrooms

  • Wood Ears

  • Shimeji mushrooms

  • Shiitake mushrooms

  • Oyster mushrooms

TOFU & BEAN CURD

  • Bean threads

  • Soy puffs

  • Firm tofu

  • Pressed tofu

  • Tofu puffs

  • Dried bean curd rolls

Instructions

  1. Place boiling soup base or stock in a wide, shallow pot the center of the table on a portable electric burner

  2. Place individual plates of raw ingredients on the table, along with dipping sauce ingredients

  3. Have each diner mix their own dipping sauce while the pot of soup comes to a boil. Once boiling, begin adding ingredients to the pot. Be sure to cook ingredients through before consuming, and allow the pot to boil for at least 30 seconds to 1 minute after adding any raw meat or seafood

Article adapted from thewoksoflife


Stacy Tjoa

I am a Singaporean living in France. Singapore is a melting pot of cultures and like a true blue Singaporean, food is well loved and always a hot conversational topic. While I am trained in digital design and marketing, this website is an outlet for me to document on asian and french food, culture and adventure.  I give all credits of my asian recipes to my mum who is an amazing cook and runs her Indonesian food business in Singapore.  

http://www.livinglover.com
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Chinese New Year Food Culture