Fill your hot pot with your favorite broth (tomato, Szechuan, mushroom, etc.). Bring the broth to a simmer. While you’re waiting, prep your other ingredients.

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Vegetable and Tofu Prep

• Cut the firm tofu into large cubes-

•  Cut the Napa cabbage into 2” pieces

•  Cut the Shanghai choy into halves or quarters, depending on the size of the vegetable

• Thinly slice the lotus root

• Cut broccoli into florets or bite sized pieces

• Prepare mushrooms by removing any part where the root is still attached.

• Display the cut vegetables on plates or in bowls.

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Non-Vegetable Prep

• Display your fish balls, fish tofu, dumplings, thinly sliced pork or beef on plates or bowls. Make sure any frozen items have been thawed.

• Thaw out shrimp and display on plate.

• Remove the fresh udon noodles from the package and let them come to room temperature. Display on a plate.

 

Cooking Your Hot Pot Meal

Bring the hot pot broth to boiling.

Ingredient Cooking Times in Boiling Broth:

• beef/ pork: 15 - 20 seconds

• shrimp: 3 - 5 minutes

• fish ball/ tofu:  5-7 minutes

• vegetables: 1 - 2 minutes

• noodles: 3 - 5 minutes

• dumplings:2-3 ​

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Method One:

Guests help themselves from the various dishes, cooking and eating as they go.

Items are dropped in the boiling broth to cook or heat through.

Each guest has several bowls with a selection of dipping sauces in front of them to choose from. After cooking, guests dip their cooked items in a dipping sauce and eat.

Items can also be enjoyed with the delicious broth from the pot.

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Method Two:

Many ingredients go into the pot starting with the items that take the longest to cook and finishing with the items that take the least amount of time to cook. Work in small batches.

For instance fish balls and tofu go in first because while they are precooked, they are very dense and therefore need extra time to heat thoroughly.

The second item is shrimp. Shrimp take 3-5 minutes to cook and should go into the pot a few minutes after the fish balls and tofu.

The third item to go into the pot should be the dumplings followed shortly by veggies and mushrooms.

Once your broth returns to a boil and the shrimp are cooked and pink in color, use a slotted spoon or hot pot spider to scoop all the cooked ingredients out.

Noodles and beef will go in separately as they cook at different times and sink to the bottom of the pot.

Guests will then pick and choose what items they want to eat from a communal plate.

Guests also have their choice of dipping sauces to enjoy with their hot pot meal.

Continue until everyone full.

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Eat and enjoy!