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Broths and Dipping Sauces
Broths
With the dipping ingredients chosen, you next have to decide what kind of broth you want to cook them in. You can keep it simple and cook everything in chicken broth (homemade or store-bought) flavored with chunks of daikon, carrots, or corn, and a few slices of ginger. There are also packages of ready-to-use hot pot broth.
Two of my favorite brands are Lee Kum Kee and Little Sheep. If you want a broth that’s mouth numbingly spicy, Little Sheep’s Mongolian hot pot broth (the one in the red package) is the way to go. For something mild, I like Lee Kum Kee’s Seafood Hot Pot base, which is good for non-seafood ingredients as well.
My all-time favorite hot broth is one that’s flavored with sacha sauce. Also known as Chinese barbecue sauce or satay sauce, sacha sauce resembles nothing like American-style barbecue sauce or the Southeast Asian peanut-based sauce we usually associate with satay. It’s made with soybean oil, garlic, chilies, dried shrimp, and brill fish. The most popular brand is BullHead, which is a tiny bit sour and comes in spicy version and non-spicy versions.
Dipping Sauces
Before you start feasting on your hot pot feast, you can’t forget about the dipping sauces. Just like the broth, there are many options. To keep it simple, I like to make a quick one by combing soy sauce with a drizzle of sesame oil and a touch of chili oil or chili flakes. You can also add chopped cilantro and/or scallions, or even fresh bird’s eye chili pepper to it.
Another popular simple dipping sauce is egg yolk: just separate the yolk from a very fresh egg, stir it, and that’s the dipping sauce (obviously avoid this if you have salmonella concerns). The yolk is especially good with meat like fatty beef and lamb. Other good dipping sauces to have on hand are a ginger-scallion sauce (great with seafood and vegetables) and a scallion-and-hot pepper sauce (perfect for noodles and meat). I’ve got all the recipes for you, don’t worry.
Setting the Table and Hot Pot Etiquette
Using separate plates for each of your ingredients might look pretty, but in a small space it’s just not practical. Ingredients that are in the same category, such as meat ingredients like fatty beef and lamb, or seafood items like fish balls and fish cakes, can all be placed together on one big plate.
Similar ingredients can share the same plate to save table space.
Also remember that you don’t need to put out all the ingredients at once: Fish balls, for instance, can be simmered from frozen, so it’s best to put just a few out at a time, keeping the rest in the freezer and replenishing as needed. The same goes for other seafood ingredients like shrimp, fish, and squid: keep some of it the fridge, topping up the plates as they run low.
Hot-Pot Etiquette
Before the first fish ball hits the pot, here are a few hot pot rules:
- Chopstick washing: It happens to everyone. You simply forgot about that shrimp, or mushroom, or beef, or whatever delicious thing you were cooking just a few minutes ago. Now it’s lost in a sea of fish balls, vegetables, and tofu. Do rescue it, but don’t do it by swishing your eating chopstick back and forth in the broth. My friend likes to call this maneuver “chopstick washing.” Use a hot pot strainer to track it down instead!
- Can’t touch this: It’s just sitting there, bobbing in the broth, waiting for someone to scoop it up, put it on their plate, sauce it, and eat it. It could be a piece of lobster tail, or a slice of chicken, but whatever it is, make sure it’s yours. Not sure? Check if anyone has already staked their claim on it.
- No double-brothing: Having more than one kind of broth available is a good thing, so don’t ruin it. Maybe not everyone can eat spicy food, or maybe there’s a guest with a seafood allergy. Or maybe you just like having two broths because you can. This means that it’s not nice to begin cooking a piece of food in one broth and then finish cooking it in the other broth. Respect the divide: No crossing over.
- House rules trump all rules, including these: You and your friends don’t care about “chopstick washing”? Why should you if you’re among people you’ve known for years? And do you all agree that it’s no big deal who dropped that shrimp in the pot? In the end, a hot meal is all about family and friends coming together, cooking, eating, talking, and enjoying each other’s company over a big pot of food, so do whatever makes you all comfortable.
You sure that’s your lobster claw?
And there you have it, everything you need to know to get started with Chinese hot pot at home.
