Hotpot 2

[Part One]

In this installment, I'm going to show you the basic ingredients for hot pot, or at least some of the more "exotic" items that you'll have to get at your local Asian supermarket. Please feel free to download the pictures to use as a shopping list if you like.

First, the ingredients that go to make your sauce in your bowl:

Asian Barbecue Sauce. This is a fish-based mild BBQ sauce.

Black Bean Garlic Sauce. Another very mild sauce.

Ground Chili Paste. Be warned: this one is HOT!!

Soy Sauce. We got this brand because of the handy dispenser bottle, but there are better ones on the market.

Sesame Oil.

Here are some of the sauce fixin's with some ingredients that go into the broth. Eggs - the yolk goes into the sauce, the white can be cooked in the broth. Scallions (green onions), chopped up can go either in the  sauce or into the broth. Napa cabbage (on the right) gets popped into the broth.

The next items are cooked in the broth:

Fish Cake. There are several kinds available.

Shrimp Balls.

Cuttlefish Balls.

Noodles. Almost any type of noodle can be used - we like to use these yam noodles, which come in little bundles, and are very easy to pick up with chopsticks.

Shabu-shabu beef. This is very thinly-sliced tender beef that cooks in under a minute. Shabu-shabu (しゃぶしゃぶ) is the name given to a Japanese version of hotpot, it translates as "swish swish", replicating the sound made by the broth in the pot.

Shrimps. The larger the better, and the more the merrier!

These are just a few of the huge range of goodies that can go into hot pot. Regional and seasonal variations, and personal preferences can all decide what makes up this wonderful dish.

Hotpot 1

Hotpot. Vietnamese Fire Pot. Steamboat. Asian Fondue. These are just a few of the names by which this delightful culinary experience is known. There are countless variations of the basic formula found all over Asia. The recipe we use was given to us by a Hungarian who got it from a Chinese Cambodian, so it must be right.

Basically, it's a type of stew, cooked in a pot (we use an electric skillet) in the centre of the table. Each diner takes morsels from this pot and dips them in a sauce in his/her bowl. Everyone makes their own sauce according to their individual tastes.

I intend, over a series of Blog posts, to show you how we do it, including photos of the main ingredients, so that you can go to your local Asian supermarket and make your own. For today, however, I'll just post a couple of taster pictures - enjoy!

The table set for a hotpot meal. In the foreground are the sauce ingredients, a plate with three kinds of tofu, and eggs.

In the background is a bowl of bundled yam noodles, while in the foreground are beef (cut very thin, it cooks in less than a minute), green onions, and shrimps.

I should add that of all things that I have photographed, hotpot is one of the most difficult and challenging, firstly because of the "normal" difficulties of food photography, composition, lighting, etc.,

and also because I always have an irresistible urge to throw (well, put) down my camera and eat. And eat...

[Part Two]