hot, by any name

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When Asians say it’s a steamboat party, they mean it.

Despite my relative silence over the past month or so, it’s actually been a very busy time for food for us here at Gravy Central.  I feel like every day I’m assembling some sort of dish to take to one party or another, and with a Gravy Baby who grows seemingly by the second and demands more and more of my time, it’s getting increasingly harder to photograph every dish that I’m cranking out.

I made an exception a few weeks ago, when we were invited to a friend’s house for what the Malaysians call steamboat.  It’s called huo guo in Mandarin Chinese, or literally, “fire pot,” and the Japanese call it shabu shabu.  The Swiss might also call this fondue on steroids, but I’m not sure, because the only Swiss person that I can verify this information with moved to Australia a few months ago, thus reducing my Swiss friend count to exactly zero.  But that’s another project for another time.


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Ma la huo guo, or Taiwanese hot pot with spicy peppercorns

No matter what you call it, the basic premise of steamboat is that you heat up a tableside pot filled with a broth base, usually chicken or sometimes just plain water.  An array of thinly sliced raw meats, usually including chicken, beef and lamb, seafood (shrimp), fish balls, tofu and noodles is arranged lovingly alongside the bubbling pot.  Meal participants each have their own empty bowl and usually a mini-strainer to cook their own food in the pot.  The process takes hours, and it’s a great way to stay warm and toasty when it’s cold outside.

But given the weather here in Malaysia, I wonder why steamboat is so immensely popular.  It seems like every neighborhood here has at least two or three steamboat-only restaurants.  Is it just that it’s so hot here that sweating a little more to eat communally around a giant boiling pot of water is peanuts compared to the actual temperature outside?  I don’t think I’ll ever really understand it.  All I know is, the Gravy family showed up to our friend’s house two weekends ago and were greeted with a 20-foot table with three bubbling pots and umpteen plates of delicious food goodness.  The hubby and I promptly parked ourselves at the ma la huo guo, or the Taiwanese version with spicy peppercorns in the broth, which just upped the sweat factor.  Hey, when it’s 90 degrees outside and we’re all crowded into the entryway of an apartment with three boiling pots of soup, bring on the spicy.  I can shower at home afterwards, and I don’t need to make any new friends.

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Despite the allure of copious amounts of hot and pot, the Gravy Baby remained one of the main attractions of the evening

The hubby and I ate until our sinuses burned.  After dinner, we sat around and discussed the relative merits of hot pot.  Done right, the broth at the end is richly flavorful, with tasty remnants of the cookfest that happened earlier that evening.  More often than not, though, hot pot can end up a big, mushy, soupy mess.  We’ve decided that it’s all in the technique, and house rules must be followed to ensure a flavorful finish:

1.  Take it slow.  Cramming everything — leafy vegetables (like bok choy), tofu, meats, shrimp, and rice vermicelli — almost ensures total destruction of the integrity of the hot pot.  Hardier fare, such as the fish balls (which is not everyone’s favorite) can go in first, because they flavor the soup with a nice brininess and are virtually indestructible over the bubbly life of the hot pot. Everything else needs to go in little by little, and there shouldn’t be so much in the pot as to crowd it or make it hard to stir.

2.  Meats should be taken by each diner for their own consumption.  The diner should take their individual bite of meat, cook it in the pot, and remove it.  Otherwise, meat that stays in the hot pot too long quickly becomes gray, rubbery floating masses.  Yuck.

3. Shrimp, noodles and leafy vegetables last.  These items don’t hold up to the heat very well, so there’s no need to dump them in at the beginning.  Otherwise, you end up with a big pile of mush.

4. Sauce it.  Every good hot pot needs a dipping sauce that can be portioned to each diner.  Try mixing the following: 3 tablespoons creamy peanut butter, 2 cloves minced garlic, a quarter cup minced cilantro, 2 tablespoons chopped green onion, a teaspoon of sesame oil, and soy sauce and red pepper flakes to taste.  You won’t be sorry.

Okay, so maybe we spent too much time analyzing what essentially is boiled food, but I think that’s the beauty of hot pot.  It brings people together for a long leisurely meal, one that requires a little bit of finesse and that (hopefully) sparks some lively debate.

Even if you have to sweat through it.

If you’re interested in throwing your own hot pot party, here are some links to get you started:

To make your own hot pot night, start here with a tabletop pot of your own

Here’s a great-looking cookbook on hot pot

An interesting Thai version of hot pot is available here 

Kylie Kwong’s version gets rave reviews

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About me

I’m Ann, a mom / wife / lawyer / certified culinary enthusiast. I share recipes, travel guides and home life tips while living overseas. Currently based in São Paulo, Brazil.

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