Hot pot

• 1. Introduction

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  Hot pot, also known as steamboat, once took over an entire coronation banquet. The Jiaqing Emperor's celebration featured 1,550 of the pots.

  The idea behind each one is simple. Broth stays hot at the center of the table, and the diners cook their own food in it.

  Yet this simple idea has no single form. Cooks in many countries have made it their own, and the results can look and taste almost nothing alike. Where did the first pot come from? Why did emperors love it? And what happens to a dish when every region, and every family, rewrites it?

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• 2. At the Table

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  Mutton and beef, sliced very thin, are the usual stars of a hot pot meal. Around them go leaf vegetables, mushrooms, vermicelli, sliced potatoes, tofu and other bean products, egg dumplings and seafood.

  Thin slicing matters because of how the pot works. A sliver of meat cooks quickly and evenly in a broth held at a gentle boil, so nobody waits long.

  Not every ingredient cooks at the same speed, though. Diners lower each piece into the soup and lift it out when it is ready. Whatever they cook leaves a little flavor behind, so the broth grows richer as the meal goes on.

  Dipping sauces add a second layer of flavor. Each cooked piece takes a dunk before it is eaten. Hot pot counts as a main course in its own right, and a table may skip rice or noodles entirely.

  The pot itself is traditionally a large metal vessel. Beijing has its own hot pot, and it is only one of many local styles.

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• 3. Bronze to Banquets

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  The bronze tripods of the Zhou dynasty may be the earliest prototypes of hot pot. Noble diners each had a personal bronze pot called a ran lu, written 燃爐. It was built as a small stove with a small pot set above burning charcoal.

  A copper hot pot appeared in the Three Kingdoms period, from 200 to 280 AD. That version is generally acknowledged as the true origin of the dish.

  By the Qing dynasty, hot pot had become a favorite of the emperors. The Qianlong Emperor was so fond of it that he ate it at almost every meal.

  Empress Dowager Cixi also loved hot pot. She liked hers with chrysanthemum, especially through the winter.

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• 4. North and South

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  Chinese diners often sort hot pot into a Southern style and a Northern style, a split that echoes the wider cultural divide between north and south. Southern pots tend toward spicy broths and elaborate dipping sauces, with more seafood, vegetables and mushrooms. Northern pots are plainer and put the meat first, especially mutton.

  Instant-boiled mutton, written 涮羊肉 and romanized as Shuàn Yángròu, is often treated as the model of the northern style. It puts the spotlight on the main ingredients rather than the soup base. Plain water, not a seasoned broth, fills the pot.

  The Manchu hot pot, 東北酸菜火鍋, takes a different turn. It uses plenty of suan cai, a pickled Chinese cabbage, which turns the broth sour.

  Hubei cuisine seasons its pot with hot spices and Sichuan pepper. Cooks there supply mushrooms, thinly shaved beef or lamb, lettuce and other greens.

  One piece of research counted 67 spices and condiments in common use for traditional Chinese hotpot. Those flavorings come from 82 plant species, spread over 50 genera in 26 families.

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• 5. Provincial Variations

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  Chongqing hot pot, 重慶火鍋, is one of the most famous Southern styles. Its mala seasoning combines chili and Sichuan pepper for a flavor that is both spicy and numbing. The pots often hold a wide range of meats and other ingredients, with plenty of sauces on offer. A typical dip pairs sesame oil with crushed fresh garlic and chopped spring onions.

  Sichuan also has "dry" hot pots such as mala xiangguo, 麻辣香鍋. The ingredients and seasoning resemble the mala pot, but everything is stir-fried rather than cooked in broth.

  Yunnan's vast forests supply a huge variety of edible mushrooms, wild or farmed. The result is the wild mushroom hot pot, 野生菌火鍋. It leaves out strong spice and chili so the mushrooms taste like themselves, and it follows the seasons, since it depends on which local mushrooms are available.

  A Cantonese habit involves mixing a raw egg into the condiments. Herbalist theories hold that this reduces the "heat" absorbed by the food, and with it the chance of a sore throat after the meal.

  Hainan cuisine serves hot pot in small woks, filled with a prepared broth and pieces of meat. The meat arrives not fully cooked, and about fifteen minutes pass before it is ready. Coconut milk and juice are commonly added to the broth.

  In Jiangsu and Zhejiang, cooks drop chrysanthemum flowers into the broth to give it a floral essence.

  Chaoshan beef hotpot, 潮汕牛肉火锅, comes from the Chaoshan region in Guangdong and belongs to Teochew cuisine. Its broth is clear, made from beef bones and sometimes chicken. The table receives roughly 7 cuts of beef, along with dipping sauces built from Shacha sauce, soy sauce, garlic, chili and more.

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• 6. Taiwan's Table

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  Xiao Haozhou's sha-cha beef hot pot was founded in 1949 by a man named Musheng Chen. Locals widely praise it as one of the most authentic hotpot restaurants. Its secret sha-cha recipe has grown into one of the iconic sha-cha sauce brands in Taiwanese cuisine.

  The dish at its center, 沙茶牛肉爐, pairs stir-fried beef with a dipping sauce of shacha. At first the pot held only a light broth, and the sha-cha was a dip. Under the influence of Japanese cuisine, the sauce now often comes with raw egg yolk.

  Taiwan also developed a chili hotpot that descends from the Szechuan chili style. This version makes room for people who can barely tolerate spice. Because the island sits near the sea, cooks build it around seafood and beef instead of animal offal.

  On Lunar New Year's Eve, the pot becomes a ritual. Instead of using whatever ingredients they like, Taiwanese families follow the principles of the five elements. They believe this creates a "mutual generation sequence," xiangsheng, 相生, that benefits those who eat.

  The elements appear as food in five colors. Stewed turnip is white, mushroom is black, burdock or pumpkin is yellow, carrot or tomato is red, and leaves complete the set for green.

  Locals also believe that more colors in the pot bring a wider range of nutrients. The pot stands for rich nutrition and blessings for family health, as well as reunion and harmony.

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• 7. Across Asia

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  In Japan, hot pots are known as nabemono. The family includes sukiyaki, yosenabe, shabu-shabu, oden and chankonabe. The Chinese-style hot pot has its own transliterated name there, hinabe.

  Korea has jeongol and jjigae, both comparable to hot pot, with variations such as budae-jjigae and kimchi-jjigae. The Chinese-style pot is called hwogwo, written 火鍋 and 훠궈.

  In Cambodia, the dish is called yao hon, យ៉ាវហន, or chhnang pleurng, ឆ្នាំងភ្លើង, which literally means pot fire. People eat it at celebrations and family gatherings. Its ingredients resemble the Chinese version, but coconut milk forms the base of the soup.

  A second Cambodian variation, buttered yao hon, cooks the same ingredients on a flat grill pan with butter as the base. That resembles Korean barbecue. Because the food is not flavored by a broth, an herb sauce is usually added.

  Lao cooks call their version sin jum, ຊີ້ນຈຸ່ມ, which means dipped meat, though seafood is also popular. Families enjoy it at home, and colleagues and friends share it in restaurants across Laos. The brown clay pots are easy to spot at street-side stalls.

  A Lao broth starts from beef ribs, pork bones or chicken, combined with galangal, lemongrass, white onions and cilantro roots, and sometimes coconut water. Water spinach, watercress, bokchoi, napa cabbage, mushrooms and glass vermicelli go in alongside thinly sliced marinated pork, beef or chicken, seafood or eggs. Crushed chili, minced raw garlic, lime wedges, cilantro leaves and fish sauce serve as condiments. Vientiane, the capital, also has restaurants serving Japanese shabu-shabu and Korean and regional Chinese hot pots.

  In the Philippines, Chinese specialty restaurants and some all-you-can-eat buffets serve hotpot. Diners there use the terms shabu-shabu and hotpot interchangeably. One specialty restaurant in Cebu City serves a huge ceramic pot of cooked rice, sliced meat, special sauce and vegetables, topped with hard-boiled egg. It is closer to kamameshi than to the dish it is named for.

  Thailand calls its version Thai suki, which differs from Japan's sukiyaki. It began as a Chinese-style hot pot, then gained a far larger menu of ingredients and a Thai dipping sauce of chili sauce, chili, lime and cilantro leaves. Tom yum is a common soup base.

  Mu kratha, another Thai variation, combines Korean barbecue with Thai suki. In the Northeast, a similar style called chim chum cooks thinly sliced meat in clay pots over a charcoal stove.

  Vietnamese cuisine knows hot pot as lẩu. Styles range from the seafood lẩu hải sản to the canh chua soup-base lẩu canh chua and the salted fish lẩu mắm.

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• 8. Beyond Asia

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  Switzerland has fondue chinoise, which literally means Chinese fondue, as a popular Christmas meal. Diners boil meat, fish and vegetables in a shared pot of broth, with sauces and pickled condiments on the side. Once everyone has finished cooking, they eat the well-flavored broth, often with thin noodles.

  Since the 1990s, the number of Chinese expatriates entering the United States has grown significantly. Chinese food rose in popularity there, and hot pot became recognized around the world.

  Outside Asia, hot pot is commonly enjoyed at home or in restaurants on small portable stoves at the table. Butane gas stoves, induction hobs and electric hot plates all hold a steady simmer through the meal. Portable induction cookers have become especially popular. They are energy-efficient, easy to clean and safer in enclosed spaces than open-flame stoves.

  The name itself can mislead. On Chinese restaurant menus in English-speaking regions, clay pot cooking is often labeled hot pot. In Britain, the word belongs to Lancashire hotpot, a different dish that happens to share it.

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