Hot Pot – 火鍋 – huǒ guō

I had a very lovely dinner with my dearest friends this weekend at my house, and our meal of choice was hot pot.  This is one of my favorite meal growing up, and still is.  Hot pot is usually eaten in winter, so we were probably a little bit too early, but the food was very good.

Hot pot is like fondue for Chinese, minus the cheese.  There are many variations in terms of what types of food to serve, but in general, hot pot refers to a metal pot of stock simmering at the center of table while various ingredients are being cooked right at the table throughout the meal.  Then food is being scooped out when they are cook, and everyone serves themselves by dipping into their favorite sauce.  Typical ingredients include wonton, fish balls, meat balls, tofu, dumplings, noodles, vegetables, mushrooms, thinly sliced meat, and seafood.  Basically, it’s whatever you like to eat.

It’s actually a pretty long meal, as you put the raw ingredients in, you will have to wait for the food to cook.  This will then usually transform into some nice conversation.  As the best hot pot requires many different types of food, so you will usually invite a few families over to enjoy all the food.  This actually makes an awesome and easy party/gathering without too much preparation, since most ingredients don’t require much work except buying them from the Chinese grocery store.  So next time when you are planning to host a gathering, consider doing hot pot.  Oh and one last thing, beer and white wine go REALLY well with hot hot!  Enjoy!