A Hot Pot to Call My Own

Many people said it couldn’t be done.  Many people mocked me.  I don’t care.  I got what I wanted!  That’s all that matters- at the end of it, my tummy was full and I was happy.  Although my table was covered in sauce…

Recently the BF took a business trip; a fairly short one, but my culinary/foodie/hungry/pig inside breathed a huge sigh of relief and thought, “Alright!  Now I can make stuff for dinner that he doesn’t/won’t eat!  Woohoo!”  Of course my mind danced around the possibilities: fish, lobster, bivalves, any number of things!  I finally settled on… hot pot.  Why, you might wonder?  Well, BF doesn’t really enjoy hot pot/shabu shabu at restaurants, and I don’t get to enjoy hot pot quite as often as I’d like in the colder months, though I grew up eating it about as frequently as any other Cantonese household might have. 

Backing up a little, hot pot/shabu shabu is basically savory fondue in broth, as opposed to oil or cheese as one might be used to.  Meat is sliced extremely thinly; some people use frozen dumplings and other assorted goodies that hold up well to boiling (fish balls, beef balls, cuttlefish sticks…); sometimes you can use chicken, fish, shrimp, anything you really want.  Since it was just me, I kept it simple – thinly sliced rib eye I’d picked up at H-Mart (an Asian/Korean supermarket), sliced Napa cabbage, spinach, enoki mushrooms, and frozen udon noodles that I’d also purchased at H-Mart. 

Shabu shabu loosely translates to “swish swish” which is basically what you do- you dip the meat into the boiling broth and swish it around, at which point it’s cooked through already.  (Hence using super thinly sliced meat.)  Then you dip it into a sauce of your own making- mine consists of Taiwanese BBQ sauce, hoisin sauce, a bit of sesame oil, soy sauce, and a raw egg, all stirred together vigorously- to cool it down, and then pop it in your mouth and enjoy!  (According to my mother, the meat is so hot that it kills any bacteria in the raw egg.  I have yet to get sick from consuming this raw egg, which I have been doing since I was a kid.  However, a friend of mine once saw me do this, so she decided to try it, and had an upset stomach the rest of the night.  Her egg might have been bad, or my body might be used to it, who knows?  But proceed with caution.)  Some people actually dip their meat into the sauce first, then drop it in the broth.  That’s also a tasty method. 

Since I don’t have space for a dedicated hot pot set, nor do I want one – I decided to try using my rice cooker for hot pot.  I’d heard you could do this (I’ve also heard you can bake a cake in a rice cooker…), so I was plenty game.  I must say, it worked, but it took forever to come to a boil after I’d cooked something. 

I highly recommend trying this method of cooking/eating sometime.  In my family, it’s much more a social activity that spans the space of a few hours while we gab away and chow down than just eating for the sake of eating.  More than a few times, and I admit this with a mixture of pride and shame- yes, both at the same time- our meals have lasted hours, and then we get up, stretch a bit, and then start eating again.  It’s an amazing sight to behold, but at the same time, kind of gross.  Then again, hot pot isn’t all that bad for you- it’s basically boiled meats, veggies, and some sauce!  The udon I like to add into the broth towards the end, and then plop into my sauce once it’s cooked, so the heat from the udon noodles heats the sauce mixture up and then absorbs it all.  Delicious. 

Happy eating to all!!!