Hot Pot

With the turn of the season and the temperature falling, one of the comforting meals I like to turn to is hot pot, or Chinese fondue. For those who have never experienced hot pot, a large pot of broth is kept simmering in the middle of the table. A variety of meats, seafood, vegetables, noodles, and dumplings are cooked in the pot and eaten with a dipping sauce.

For our first hot pot of the season, we used a tom yum soup base. We got some thinly sliced beef, dace fish balls and imitation lobster balls from T&T Supermarket. I also sliced up a pork tenderloin. Meat is usually thinly sliced so that it can cook quickly in the broth. It can come pre-sliced from many Asian supermarkets or you can cut it yourself. To facilitate easier DIY slicing, the meat can be put in the freezer until it is half frozen.

For veggies, we chose watercress, siu choy (Chinese cabbage) cut into bite-sized pieces, enoki mushrooms, and regular button mushrooms. We also pre-cooked a package of rice vermicelli beforehand, and defrosted a package of O'Tasty pork and vegetable dumplings. On a side note, I highly recommend these dumplings. They make for an easy work lunch. They're pre-cooked and frozen, so all you have to do is heat them up and eat. You can find them for $4 for a package of 20 when on sale (T&T sells them).

Another thing we like to have with hot pot are konnyaku noodle bundles, also known as shirataki noodles. These are incredibly healthy as they are virtually calorie-free, but also have no fat, carbs, nor protein. But they are very high in fibre. It's touted as the diet food in Japan. It's tasteless, but it easily absorbs the flavor of whatever you cook it with, or any dipping sauce you use.

The two dipping sauces we used were sa cha sauce and something similar to satay sauce (a mixture of peanut butter, hoisin sauce, and sesame paste).

Because of the variety of food we like to cook in hot pot, we always have tons of food so we always invite others over. Let me know if you want to join us for our next hot pot!