Hot pots warm you up from the inside making you happy in the process. Read on to learn about delicious various hot-pot recipes you can eat every day.
Contents
- Electric Pot
- Clay Pot
- Preparing Stock
- Shiitake Mushrooms
- Cooking Congee at the End
- “Hot Pot Manager”
- How to cook Nabe?
- Duck Pot Recipe
- Crab Pot Recipe
- Miso Hot Pot Recipe
Electric Pot
An electric pot lets you cook various dishes easily right at the dinner table. Temperature control is very easy, and you can cook almost anything. An electric pot is ideal for certain hot-pot dishes that can’t be cooked in a clay pot, such as sukiyaki. Particularly, the electric pot used in the recipes featured here can be detached from the base and placed over an open flame. So, you can pre-cook the ingredients on a gas stove, and then put the pot back into the base to be served at the table. This not only saves time but also cuts down on your electricity consumption. Once you start using an electric pot, you’ll find it’s really convenient. Soon you won’t be able to live without one!
Clay Pot
A clay pot allows mild heat to be applied over the entire face, so when ingredients are put in the temperature doesn’t drop suddenly but a constant temperature is maintained instead. Simply put, with a clay pot the temperature doesn’t rise quickly but it doesn’t drop suddenly, either. As a result a clay pot is perfect for hot-pot dishes. A clay pot also creates a unique visual effect that enhances the flavors of the dish.
Preparing Stock
Stock is the life of any hot-pot dish. When there’s tasty soup, there’s always good stock. An all-purpose stock that can magically transform any hot-pot dish into a delicious creation is prepared by soaking 20 grams of konbu and 20 grams of dried small sardines in 1 liter of water overnight. Prepare this stock in a large quantity, and keep the leftover stock in your refrigerator. You can use it for any dish, and the mineral-rich stock doubles as a healthy drink. To prepare dried bonito stock, bring the above all-purpose stock to a boil, add 50 grams of dried bonito flakes and remove from heat. Wait 10 minutes, then strain the stock through a tea towel.
Shiitake Mushrooms
Never wash fresh shiitake mushrooms in water. To clean shiitake mushrooms, gently rub them with a tea towel. Dried shiitake mushrooms should be soaked in water overnight in a refrigerator. Dried shiitake mushrooms contain several times more nutrients and have correspondingly more flavor than fresh ones do.
Cooking Congee at the End
Before putting white rice into the pot, wash it with water in a bamboo basket. This way the soup won’t become sticky after the rice is added. If you use brown rice, you needn’t wash it because brown rice is less sticky. Add eggs and trifoliate, and voila! You have delicious congee. You can also add udon, ramen noodles or rice cakes.
“Hot Pot Manager”
When you have many people over for a hot pot, it is important that ingredients are put in and picked up with the perfect timing. To make the hot-pot gathering a more enjoyable experience, assign a cooking leader as the “Hot Pot Manager” to control the timing.
How to cook Nabe?
Crab Pot Recipe
Ingredients (Serves 4)
- 1 lb. 12 oz. crab (king crab, snow crab or other crab of your choice)
- 1 grilled tofu
- 6 Chinese cabbage leaves (large)
- 1 garland chrysanthemum (bunch)
- 1 green onion
- 8 fresh shiitake mushrooms
- 1 pack of eringi mushrooms
Flavoring ingredients
- 5 Tbsp. miso
- 2 Tbsp. mirin (sweet cooking rice wine)
- 3 Tbsp. soy sauce
- 1/5 cup sake (cooking sake)
- 2-3/5 cups all-purpose stock
Cooking Directions
- Diagonally cut the crab into smaller pieces so that they can be put into the pot, and make cuts in the shell.
- Make crosscuts into fresh shiitake mushrooms after removing the stems and cut all the other ingredients into appropriate sizes.
- Transfer the ingredients onto a plate. Mix miso, mirin, soy sauce, sake and all-purpose stock in a pot and bring to a boil. Add the ingredients, starting with the vegetables.
- Add crab at the very end. Start eating the ingredients as they’re cooked.
Tips
- Crabmeat will harden and lose its flavor if it’s cooked too long. To finish off, make congee with the stock full of crab juice.
Duck Pot Recipe
Ingredients (Serves 4)
- 11 oz. duck breast
- 1/4 Chinese cabbage
- 1 green onion
- 4 shiitake mushrooms
- 1 pack of enoki mushrooms
- 1 grilled tofu
- 1/2 bag kuzukiri
- 1 mizuna (bunch)
- 2-2/5 cups bonito stock
- 3 Tbsp. sake (cooking sake)
- 3 Tbsp. mirin (sweet cooking rice wine)
- 4 Tbsp. light soy sauce
Condiments
- Sesame, shichimi pepper (assorted chili pepper), kanzuri, etc.
Cooking Directions
- Place the duck skin-side-down and thinly whittle the meat. Cut all the other ingredients into appropriate sizes and transfer onto a plate.
- Put stock, sake, mirin and soy sauce into a pot and bring to a boil. Add the ingredients, starting with the hard vegetables.
- Add duck as the last ingredient and wait until the pot boils again. Eat the ingredients as they’re cooked.
Tips
- Overboiling the duck will make the meat hard. Eat the duck quickly as soon as it’s cooked.
- Congee with stock rich in the flavor of duck is an added delight!
Miso Hot Pot Recipe
Ingredients (Serves 4)
- 14 oz. shelled oysters
- 1 grilled tofu
- 3.5 oz. burdock
- 1 spinach (bunch)
- 1 green onion
- 2 oz. carrot
- 2-4/5 cups bonito stock
Miso mix
- 5.5 oz. white miso
- 5.5 oz. red miso
- 2 Tbsp. mirin (sweet cooking rice wine)
- 2 Tbsp. sake (cooking sake)
- 1 Tbsp. sugar
Cooking Directions
- Gently clean oysters in saltwater.
- Cut the carrot neatly and boil it. Boil the spinach without cutting.
- Whittle burdock and soak in water mixed with a small amount of vinegar (measurement is not given). Cut all the other ingredients into appropriate sizes.
- Mix the miso ingredients and put the mixture around the rim of the clay pot over a vertical width of 3cm high.
- Put all ingredients other than the oysters into the pot, fill stock to approximately 1cm below the miso wall, and put the pot on the fire.
- When the pot starts to boil, add oysters and eat them while slowly diluting the mixed miso into the stock.
Tips
- Don’t cook oysters too long. Once oysters are cooked, eat them quickly before they become hard.
- The fragrant aroma of miso is the key.
Recipe by: Gochiso Magazine, Nijiya Market
