I know what it is in general terms— a big pot of hot broth at a communal table where the diners add various ingredients to cook in the broth, and share the results.
My son, who at a young age is already more well-traveled and more knowledgeable of various cuisines than I am, likes hot pot a lot. He’s hosted ‘hot pot parties’ at his college. He came home this weekend and brought back a nice ‘hot pot’ cooking pot, with a built-in divider for two different types of broth, or two different spice levels.
So I got to wondering about how the whole process works. I’d ask my son but he’s already on his way back to college- it’s a long drive.
So I have questions like, is the broth consumed with the other ingredients, like a soup, or is the broth more of a cooking medium, like hot oil in a fondue pot? If the former, does broth keep getting added as it’s depleted, or if it’s the latter, are the solid ingredients sort of fished out with a slotted spoon or something and eaten on their own?
I’m sure there are rules of etiquette, like there are for eating sushi. Again I’m thinking of the ‘fondue’ model vs. the ‘soup’ model. Do the diners generally try to take out the ingredients they added to the pot (like fondue) or is it all a mix that everybody shares (like soup)? What if someone at the table doesn’t like an ingredient someone else wants to add— do heated hot pot arguments sometimes break out?
These might seem like dumb questions, but when I make soup I add seasonings and ingredients while tasting to get everything to what I consider a perfect balance of flavors before serving it. Hot pot just seems like it would be kind of all over the place in terms of the results.
IME, the latter: you leave the broth in the pot and take the solids out with a slotted spoon or tongs. The broth is still “depleted” as it boils off, so waitstaff will periodically refill the pot with hot water from a kettle.
Most hot pot restaurants will offer a pot that’s divided into two or three parts so you and your dining companions can choose from (e.g.) regular, spicy, and mushroom-flavored broths. There’s usually also a sauce bar where you can assemble your own dipping sauce out of various ingredients (chili oil, sesame paste, etc.).
In my experience, the broth is so strongly flavoured to begin with that you wouldn’t really notice any additional flavour coming from an ingredient being quickly cooked in it and then extracted.
Ok, so already I’m understanding that the process is more along the ‘fondue’ model than the ‘soup’ model. I was thinking it was more like sharing a communally made soup. Thanks.
Yes, although with fondue you have people keeping tabs on the particular items that they added and that’s not how it works with hot pot (at least in my experience). Hot pot is more of a family-style eating experience where the group dumps a bunch of items in and each person takes pieces out. You might get the stink-eye if you ate more than your fair share of the “good stuff”, though (like any other family-style dinner).
I disagree. But this is why you talk with you dining companions. If there’s a food offered that someone is allergic to, or has a strong aversion to traces of, it doesn’t go into the pot.
There are usually tons of choices of what to cook.
With fondue, your piece is on your fork. With hot pot, everything gets mixed up. (That’s why no one adds the stuff someone can’t eat.) But my family has diverse preferences, so my husband is okay with someone else putting shrimp in the broth, but he won’t eat any of it. When my family eats hot pot, we each mostly take out what we put in.
I haven’t made hot pot (our version is the Japanese variety, “shabu shabu”, which roughly translates to ‘swish-swish’, to evoke the sound of dipping your food in the broth and gently…uh…swishing it around in the broth to cook it) in quite a while, and we drink the broth that’s remains from a rice bowl as a light soup/palate cleanser. Shabu-shabu broth is very lightly season at the beginning, unlike other kinds of hot pot, some of which are fiercely seasoned to start. IMO, shabu-shabu starts with a light broth because you have one or more dipping sauces to season your just-cooked food bits, vs Taiwanese hot pot (just for example), where the broth is intended to impart the flavors and there is usually no dipping sauce at the end. Some traditional shabu-shabu dipping sauces are soy-, miso-, ginger-, or sesame-based. There are others, of course, limited by your palate, fridge contents, and wallet.
For what it’s worth, there’s a dish called Fondue Chinoise (Chinese fondue), which is the Swiss version of hotpot. Every time I’ve had it, the broth is divided among the people at the table and eaten at the end of the meal. Sometimes the waiter will take the pot back to the kitchen to do the dividing, or the waiter might just bring bowls and a ladle and either portion out the broth for the table, or people at the table will take what they want.