Taiwanese Hot Pot

Ingredients:

For the Chicken Broth:
4 pots of jellified chicken stock
2l of water
2 tbsp Cooking oil
2 tbsp Dried shrimp

For the Spicy Mala Broth:
Water
2 tbsp Cooking oil
4-5 tbsp Spicy Chilli Bean Paste (Doubanjiang)
2 tbsp Sichuan Peppercorn
8cm piece of of Ginger, sliced
4 Dried Red chillies
1 apple, cut in to 3cm pieces

Hot Pot Ingredients:
1kg of Thinly-sliced meat
500g of Seafood
Assortment of vegetables
500g Chinese meatballs – Pork, beef, squid, fish, shrimp, etc.
700g of Glass Noodles
Other – Tofu, kamaboko, crab-sticks, and more...

Dipping Sauce Ingredients:
120ml Shacha sauce
120ml Soy Sauce
2 tsp Rice wine vinegar
2 tsp Sesame Oil
3 spring onions, chopped
5 Garlic cloves, minced
4 tbsp of coriander, chopped
1 tsp sugar

Method:

For the chicken broth: Place a wok over medium heat and add in the oil and dried shrimp. Cook for about 1 minute, or until aromatic. Turn the mixture into the chicken broth and bring to a boil.

For the Spicy Mala Broth: Fill a soup pot with water and bring to a boil over high heat.

Combine the cooking oil and chilli bean paste in a wok over medium heat. Once it starts heating up, add the sliced ginger and dried chillies. Add this hot chilli oil mix in to the hot water.

Add sichuan pepper and apples and bring to a boil.

The broth base is ready at this point. However, this is a good time to get the hot pot started for consumption. I recommend this because otherwise everyone is going to sit around the hot pot cooking everything from scratch.

Add some vegetables, tofu, kamaboko, meatballs and other items that can stay in the hot pot longer. However, omit the meat and seafood for mow.

Bring to a boil. Now if you are using a different pot to eat out of for the actual meal pour the broth to the pot.

For the Dipping Sauce: Simply mix together the ingredients in a small bowl. Serve with spoon in to everyone's individual bowls. Everyone can add more as needed.

I have a pot with a central divider so it's possible to heat two different broths at the same time. If you don't have this, set up two burners on your table.

Place a portable gas burner in the centre of your table and arrange the pot with the broths on this so everyone has access.

Arrange all the raw ingredients you want in your hot pot around the table.

I like to have some spare chopsticks near the pot. These are used to add and remove ingredients from the pot only, not to eat with. Also lay some ladle spoons and slotted spoons for people to get soup and other ingredients are to grab with chopsticks.

I would also suggest that each diner has access to the following: Personal chopsticks, plate, and a bowl. The chopsticks is for eating (as opposed to the spare/public chopsticks for grabbing things out of the hot pot), the plate is for holding the food you grabbed and letting it cool before you eat it, and bowl's got the sauce, so you can dip your hotpot food in before you eat it.

When it's time to cook and eat, turn on the portable stove and keep the fire burning so the broths are always hot.

Add the ingredients to the stocks as desired. For thinly sliced meat, it cooks FAST. So what you want to do is pick up the slices of beef and put it in the hot pot with chopsticks. You can leave it there or you can stir it around. I recommend cooking it on the non spicy side first, and then moving it to the spicy broth if you're doing both. This will make the non spicy sides soup so tasty at the end, while still giving you a spicy mala kick.

For other ingredients just add to the broth and cook until it is cooked thoroughly. When that particular ingredient is done, transfer to your plate to cool, dip in the dipping sauce and eat.

Don't forget to drink the soup stock at the end, the soup gets really flavourful because of all the ingredients you've cooked in it.

Also, it's typical in Taiwan, when a hotpot is prepared to eat it for several meals. So feel free to repeat by adding more ingredients for every meal.