Hello From one foodie to another

My parents and I spent Saturday afternoon shopping in Chinatown. My family was on a mission: purchasing ingredients for huo guo (hot pot). Hot pot is a meal where people gather around a pot of boiling broth and cook their desired ingredients, ranging from meats (pork, beef, chicken, shellfish), to vegetables (菠菜 spinach, napa cabbage, bean sprouts), to other items such as tofu and 粉丝 (clear noodles). Other than the cleaning and preparation of the raw ingredients, this is a pretty simple meal, but it felt really special because we don’t often make it at home. It became an unofficial tradition to go to a hot pot restaurant in Flushing, Queens (details at the end*) for New Years Eve. As I was walking through Chinatown with my mother, I felt a sense of purpose, as I usually do when we’re grocery shopping, because she knew exactly which shops to go to for each ingredient. I’m taking notes because I feel like I ought to be able to do this now, even though the only Cantonese I speak is a little food and numbers, but I like to pretend!

Similar to dim sum, I’ve found that hot pot also requires a certain level of technique to achieve the best experience. For example, poaching an egg in a wire net requires that you cook the egg for a certain amount of time, crack the egg in the net, and have a minimum starting temperature, otherwise the egg will end up in everyone else’s food. Mixing the sauces correctly is also requires strategy, mixing the peanut sauce with egg isn’t as delicious, but it tastes great with the meats. Mixing the soy sauce and egg up in the broth to eat the noodles and vegetables is the best and also experimenting with sesame oil, chili sauce, etc.

All of this mixing and cooking creates a delightful broth. Over the course of the meal, the simple broth had taken on the flavors of the pork and beef, bo cai, bean sprouts, bai cai, and shrimp. Tonight we added cubes of tofu to create a substantial soup with the leftover meat, vegetables, and noodles.