🍲 Hotpot for Beginners 🔥

A Beginners Friendly Guide
Tips For Your First Hotpot Experience

Image by Matt Armendariz

Hotpot is a great opportunity to try many different types of food in one sitting. Though the table setting may seem absolutely unfamiliar, it is more forgiving than it initially looks! Just keep a few of these 🥢tips in mind and you're well on your way to enjoying the delicious beauty of hotpot! 😋
Hotpot is typically a communal eating activity, so I highly recommend bringing along friends or family!👨‍👩‍👧‍👦

🥘 Soup Stock

The first thing to listed on the menu is usually the soup stock your ingredients will be cooked in. In most restuarants there is an option to try two different types of stock in a single pot because the pot will have a divider. This divider is also useful if you have a party member who might be allergic to certain ingredients, so their food can be safely cooked and consumed from one half of the pot.
My recommendation is to start of with their basic bone-based stock. Even though the more popular stock is a spicy mala flavor I don't recommend it for beginners because the flavors of the spices can be too overpowering. 🥵 If you love spicy flavors you can always dip your cooked ingredient in your personal dipping sauce!

🥢I highly recommend the non spicy tomato-based soup stock! It has a hint of sweetness and slightly tart tomato flavor! 🤤

🥬 Ingredients

This is where you can go wild! Ingredients will typically be divided into meats, vegetables, seafood, meatballs, noodles, tofu, and other specials the restuarant offers! Pick anything you want to try, but try not waste any food! If you have chosen an all-you-can-eat option you may be fined for food you can't finish and you won't be allowed to bring any leftovers home! This is why you should bring a few more mouths with you so you can try a larger variety of ingredients!

🥢 Here are some of my recommendations:

Sliced beef, sliced lamb
Shrimp paste, fish fillet
Beef ball, shrimp ball, fish ball, tofu fish ball
Fresh tofu, fried tofu, soybean round
Udon noodles, house made noodles
Lotus root, chinese yam, napa cabbage, enoki mushroom, shiitake mushroom

💥 Dipping Sauce

Image by Luna Wang

There will be an open self-serve sauce/condiment station, and it's time to head over there after handing your order slip to the wait staff. It is perfectly alright if you chose to not want any dipping sauce but there may be some snacks at the station to keep you busy while you wait for your ingredients! Grab a small bowl (or bowls) and choose from a variety of condiments and provided snacks!
🥢My go-to condiment concoction is peanut/sesame paste, satay sauce, light soysauce, sesame oil, and cilantro/green onions.

🥘 Cooking

Here is where most of the confusion occurs. You are faced with a table full of ingredients and they're not even cooked! In my opinion the charm of hotpot occurs here, because you get to be the cook! Firstly, toss in your root vegetables (i.e. potato, taro root, radish, lotus root, chinese yam) in first, because they will typically take the longest to cook.

🩺 I strongly advise getting seperate tableware for handling uncooked meat and seafood! There can be some issues where you accidently ingest uncooked or undercooked ingredients, so get a seperate pair of chopsticks or tongs that only touches raw meat. Then, get a seperate set that handles cooked ingredients. While you're at it make sure you have a set of chopsticks that are only for you! Keep it safe and sanitary!
Next, add an assortment of your beef, fish, and tofu balls in because they can take quite long to cook! They'll usually be done in around 5 minutes, watch for when they have floated up to the surface. While you're waiting on your beef balls, fish balls, or tofu balls the quickest ingredient to cook are your sliced meats. When the stock is at a simmer, you only need to submerge and swirl the meat for a few seconds!

🥢 Watch for the color change! It will noticeablely change color in a few seconds because they are sliced so thinly. You're looking for an even color change throughout the whole slice and the previous color of the raw sliced meat will be completely gone and most likely to have shrunk in size. Eat it as is or dip in your condiment of choice! Bon Appetit!

🩺 When alternating between cooking your meat or seafood and other ingredients, you may want to wait a minute after cooking meat or seafood. I recommend cooking a large variety of sliced meat at one time, put it to the side for everyone at the table to take from. Wait approximately a minute, and continue with your vegetables, tofu, or noodles.
At this point your root vegetable should be done! They are usually at the bottom of the pot, so grab a communal use strainer or ladle to fish them up! Be warned that if you leave them unattended for too long they may have broken up and dissolved into the stock! 😥

At this point if you notice the level of soup stock has decreased by half or more, flag down a wait staff employee so that they can fill it back up! This service is free. You can also go back to the sauce/condiment station to try out the ones you skipped over on your initial run.

You are now ready to tackle your hotpot adventures!
Try hotpot at home! Hotpot Level 2