Do you know the kind of dinner party I don’t like? The one where the host is cooking the entire time. A host that's in the kitchen is a host that's stressed out—and possibly stressing everybody else out—while simultaneously ignoring the people who have been invited into his or her home.
But what if everyone was cooking?
That was my thought when I first considered cooking traditional Chinese hot pot at home. The name says it all: diners gather around a giant pot of flavored broth and take turns dipping in raw ingredients. The broth cooks the ingredients, not unlike the oil in fondue. And just like fondue, hot pot is perfect for groups—and it's not an idea that's stuck in the ‘70s.
So here's what I did: I invited eleven friends to come over and gather around the hot pot. Then the hard part came. I had to figure out to pull hot pot at home off.
The communal activity of gathering around a pot of simmering broth is common all over Asia. But just exactly what kind of broth is in the pot depends on where exactly in Asia you are. In Japan, where the dining ritual is called shabu shabu, the broth is kombu-based, likedashi. Meanwhile,Mongolian hot potfeatures goji berries and jujubes. And on mainland China, Szechuanese hot pot is packed with lip-numbing peppercorns, chili peppers, and spices. That's the hot pot I wanted at my party.
At restaurants specializing in hot pot, the experience goes like this: you order a broth and raw ingredients, the staff fires up a portable hot plate at the table, and once the broth starts simmering, you start cooking the ingredients yourself.
To bring hot pot to my home, I had to make a few changes. I couldn't keep the broth simmering on the stovetop, obviously, and I don't own a hot plate. That led me to the slow cooker. If it can braise a pork shoulder, surely it can simmer a simple broth—right?
When I spoke to Sarah Leung, one of the four writers behind the acclaimed Chinese food blogWoks of Life, she approved my slow cooker idea. She also gave me all kinds of other pointers for shopping, preparing the broth, and keeping things moving as smoothly as possible. My most important takeaway? “A hot pot experience is ultimately what you make of it.”
Well, I wanted to make it awesome. But first, I had some shopping to do.
Justlike in stir-frying, the most important and time-consuming part of hot pot is getting yourmise en place——也就是说,所有的蔬菜和肉类你将dipping into the hot pot—together and organized. You want a small arsenal of ingredients to dip and cook at your party, so the more variety, the better. I found an Asian market to make my shopping as one-stop as possible (less grocery trips = happier host). Hong Kong Supermarket in lower Manhattan had just about everything, from shrimp snacks to fish balls.
“You can look at it as ‘oh, this is so complicated,’” says Leung. But, she says, that's not the point. "The thing about hot pot that makes it great is variety.”
So variety is what I procured. I bought vegetables (daikon radish, baby bok choy, napa cabbage, two types of mushrooms), meats (thinly-sliced rib eye, chicken cutlets), fish balls (from the frozen section—they cook fast and you'd never see one at a fondue party), pillowy fried tofu andfirm tofuthat can be cut into thick strips.
Next on my list: Build the broth that all this stuff will cook in.
Woks of Life gave methe method for the mouth-buzzing hot pot brothI was after. In a carbon steel wok (I got mine fromSan Francisco's Wok ShopI stir-fried sliced ginger, bay leaves, whole cinnamon, whole peeled garlic cloves, star anise, cloves, Sichuan peppercorns, and dried chilis. Then I addeda store-bought hot pot base, a paste made from from a blend of chili peppers.
(Adding that hot pot paste was a serious blast to the nose—so much, it almost knocked our photographer off of her stool in a coughing fit. I quickly turned on the vent hood.)
After the aromatics were fried and caramelized came the annoying part: Pouring in 12 cups of chicken stock and bringing it to a boil. It's annoying because, given the wok’s capacity, I could only bring about half of the broth to a boil before transferring the whole thing to a big soup pot, where I added the remaining broth. Oncethatbatch came to a boil, I transferred it all to the slow cooker. That's three cooking vessels, sure—but it's a much smaller mess than trying to put all that broth in the wok.
Depending on how many people you invite, it may get a little crowded around the hot pot. Keep tempers from flaring by serving some snacks. I chose someeasy roasted almonds(subbing in a few pinches of Chinese 5-spice powder for the lavender), a delectablesmashed cucumber salad, and someCalbee shrimp chips. I served all this with some light beers (like the Chinese lager Tsingtao), and while everyone snacked and sipped, I got going on the condiments.
First, Imade a pot of short-grain rice(you could also use glass noodles). Then I set out all those essential Asian sauces: soy sauce, Shacha (a sort of Chinese barbecue sauce), black vinegar, chili oil, and sesame paste (tahinifrom Whole Foods did the trick). I also set out garnishes such as crushed peanuts and freshly chopped cilantro and scallions.
If I’m being honest, I hadn’t put any thought into dessert until I spoke to my mom that morning. When she heard that my guests' mouths would be buzzing from all those peppercorns, she recommended I have some chocolate ice cream on hand. And, as is usually the case, mom was right. (Thanks, mom.)
With everything ready, I set the hot pot in a place where everybody could gather around it and we all dug in, dropping whatever we wanted into the slow cooker. We all had chopsticks, but there was an even more important utensil on hand: a spider strainer. When set gently into the hot pot, the spider creates a sort of net for the meats and veggies, so that they can be submerged and cook but not sink to the bottom.
When it’s wasn't being used, I replaced the lid on the slow cooker to keep it at a simmer. (This is a safety thing; a tepid broth won't properly cook the meats.) Another option would have been to reserve some of the spicy broth at a simmer on my stovetop and periodically replaced the hot pot's broth.
text in callout
当我看到我的朋友他们meals-rice组装(or noodles) in the bottom of the bowl, the just-cooked meats and veggies on top, sauces and garnishes to finish it all off—I saw that my hot pot plan had totally worked. Everybody having a good time and eating well. And they didn't even realize that they had cook their meals themselves.
