Spicy Sesame Soy Milk Hot Pot

Spicy Sesame Soy Milk Hot Pot is not a very traditional Japanese hot pot, but it has become increasingly popular in Japan. The basis of the broth is dashi stock and soy milk, but a few ingredients such as tobanjan, rāyu (chilli oil), and white sesame paste are added to make the broth richer and slightly spicy.

I find that the palate of Japanese people, particularly young people, is changing – people like more spicy and garlicky flavours. Even the Japanese food icon, ramen has popular spicy ramen variations. When I was a child, there were no such thing as spicy hot pot and spicy ramen.

But I must admit that I grew to like the modern version of hot pot like today’s dish as well as the traditional hot pots.

I posted Quick and Easy Hot Pot at Home some time ago. In this post, I introduced store-bought hot pot broth in various forms.

Left: Goma Tōnyū Nabe Tsuyu. Right: Goma Tan Tan Nabe Tsuyu.

One of them was Goma Tōnyū Nabe Tsuyu, which is made up of sesame, soy milk, and chicken broth with other seasonings. I quite liked the soy milk flavour in the hot pot. I also liked the spicy hot pot broth, Goma Tan Tan Nabe Tsuyu in the same post. It does not use soy milk but contains tobanjan (also called doubanjiang) to spice up the broth.

Today’s hotpot is a combination of these two flavours.

I am not good with very spicy food, so my recipe only has a mild spiciness. You can always increase the chilli flavours to make the broth much spicier if you wish.

What’s in My Spicy Sesame Soy Milk hot Pot

The list of ingredients is long, but just like any other hot pots, there is no complicated cooking process.

I wanted to have meatballs with a bit of spiciness to match with the broth. So, I decided to make pork meatballs mixed with tobanjan.

Meatballs

• Pork mince
• Grated ginger
• Tobanjan.

Vegetables

• Chinese cabbage, cut into 4cm/1 9⁄16” wide strips
• Carrot, thinly sliced diagonally
• Shiitake mushrooms, halved
• Enoki mushrooms, cluster trimmed
• Momen (firm) Tofu, cut into large bite-size cubes
• Green onions, diagonally cut into 5-7cm/2-2¾” long
• Garlic chives, cut into 5cm/2″ long.

You don’t need to have all the vegetables listed above. You can also substitute other vegetables, e.g. bok choy in place of Chinese cabbage, and other Asian mushrooms instead of shiitake and enoki mushrooms.

Broth

• Dashi stock
• Soy sauce
• Salt
• Sugar
• Sesame oil
• Miso
• Tobanjan/ doubanjiang (chilli bean paste)
• Rāyu (chilli oil)
• Soy milk
• White sesame paste (or tahini)
• Ground white sesame seeds.

How to make Spicy Sesame Soy Milk hot Pot

1. Mix the Meatball ingredients well and make meatballs of about 3cm/1⅛” in diameter (I made 8).
2. Put all the Broth ingredients, excluding soy milk, sesame paste, and sesame seeds, into the pot and bring it to a boil.
3. Cook meatballs in the broth until the surface of the meatballs becomes whitish.
4. Starting from the vegetables that will take longest to cook, add vegetables to the pot in stages and continue to cook.
5. While cooking vegetables, mix the soy milk, sesame paste, and ground sesame seeds in a jug.
6. When the vegetables are wilted, add the soy milk mixture to the pot and gently mix.
7. When the broth starts boiling again, turn the heat off.

It is important not to boil the broth vigorously after adding the soy milk mixture because the milk will start curdling.

After having Spicy Sesame Soy Milk Hot Pot, I would strongly recommend that you cook udon noodles in the leftover broth. It is so good!

It is getting cold in Australia, and I have hot pot quite often these days. Hot pot is one of the best ways of eating a large quantity of vegetables without feeling like you are having veggies for the sake of a healthy diet.

Yumiko

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Spicy Sesame Soy Milk Hot Pot

Prep Time

15 mins

Cook Time

15 mins

Total Time

30 mins

 

Spicy Sesame Soy Milk Hot Pot is not a very traditional hot pot but has become increasingly popular in Japan. The basis of the broth is dashi stock and soy milk, but a few ingredients such as tobanjan, rāyu (chili oil), and white sesame paste are added to make the broth richer and slightly spicy.

Don't forget to see the section 'MEAL IDEAS' below the recipe card! It gives you a list of dishes that I have already posted and this recipe that can make up a complete meal. I hope it is of help to you.

Recipe Type: Main

Cuisine: Japanese

Keyword: Japanese hot pot, meatball hot pot, spicy hot pot

Serves: 2

Author: Yumiko

Ingredients (tbsp=15ml, cup=250ml)

Meatballs

• 150g/5.3oz pork mince (note 1)
• ¼ tsp grated ginger
• 1 tsp tobanjan/doubanjiang (chili bean sauce, note 2)

Vegetables (note 3)

• 300g/10.6oz Chinese cabbage
• 50g/1.8oz carrot
• 2 shiitake mushrooms (medium size, about 30g/1.1oz in total)
• 30g/1.1oz enoki mushrooms
• 150g/5.3oz momen(firm) tofu
• 30g/1.1oz green onions
• 30g/1.1oz garlic chives

Broth

• 1⅕ cup (300ml/10.1fl oz) dashi stock (note 4)
• 1½ tbsp soy sauce
• ¼ tsp salt
• 2 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• ½ tbsp miso
• 1 tbsp tobanjan (chilli bean sauce note 2)
• ½ tsp rāyu (chilli oil)

Sesame Soy Milk

• ¾cup (187.5ml/6.3fl oz) cup soy milk
• 1 tbsp white sesame paste (or tahini)
• 1 tbsp ground white sesame seeds

Instructions

Preparing Vegetables

1. Chinese cabbage: Trim off the end of the stem and cut the leaves perpendicular to the direction of the leaf into 4cm/1 9⁄16” wide strips.

2. Carrot: Thinly slice it diagonally into 4-5cm/1½-2" long and 3mm/⅛" thick pieces. If your carrot is big (fat), halve it vertically. Halve it vertically first, then slice the pieces.

3. Shiitake mushrooms: Trim the end of the stem off and halve the cap.
4. Enoki mushrooms: Trim the cluster base and separate the mushrooms into small clusters.

5. Tofu: Cut into 4 equal blocks.

6. Green onion: Diagonally slice the stems into 5-7cm/2-2¾" long pieces.

7. Garlic chives: Cut into 5cm/2” long strips.

Making meatballs

1. Put all the Meatball ingredients in a bowl and mix well.
2. Divide the meat into 8 equal potions and make 8 meatballs.

Cooking Hot Pot

1. Put all the Broth ingredients into a pot of at least 2.5L/5.3pt in capacity (note 5) and mix well dissolving miso and tobanjan. Bring it to a boil.

2. Put meatballs into the pot and cook until the surface of the meatballs becomes whitish.

3. Add the stem part (white part) of the Chinese cabbage pieces, carrots, and shiitake mushrooms to the pot, clustering each ingredient together (note 6).

4. Place a lid on and bring it to a boil. When it starts boiling, reduce the heat to medium and continue to cook for about 5 minutes until the vegetables are almost cooked. You may need to jiggle the ingredients a bit to submerge the uncooked parts in the broth.

5. Remove the lid and add the remaining Chinese cabbage leaves, tofu, and enoki mushrooms, clustering each ingredient together. Gently push down the vegetables to submerge them in the broth (note 6).

6. When the newly added vegetables start wilting (about a minute or two), add green onions and garlic chives to the pot. Again, gently push downwards to get to the broth level. Cook for a minute or so.

7. In the meantime, mix the Sesame Soy Milk ingredients in a jug or a small bowl until the sesame paste is dissolved.

8. When the green onion and garlic chives start wilting, add sesame soy milk to the pot and gently stir without breaking the clustered vegetables. If you jiggle the meat/vegetables with your chopsticks/spoon in various places, the milk will mix.

9. When the broth starts bubbling around the edge, reduce the heat to low. When the broth starts boiling, turn the heat off (note 7).

10. Bring the pot to the centre of the table with a ladle and serve with individual small bowls.

11. To eat, transfer some meat and vegetables with the soy milk broth from the pot into your bowl. (note 8)

Recipe Notes

1. Instead of pork mince, you can use chicken mince. If you are a vegetarian, you can omit meatballs and increase the quantity of tofu.

2. Fermented chili bean sauce is often used in Chinese dishes. You can buy tobanjan at Asian grocery stores and supermarkets.

3. You don’t need to have all the vegetables listed in the ingredients.

You can substitute to other vegetables, e.g. bok choy in replace of Chinese cabbage, and other Asian mushrooms instead of shiitake and enoki mushrooms.

You can also change the proportion of vegetables. As long as the total volume is similar to the recipe, that’s OK.

4. If you are making a vegetarian version, use konbu dashi.

5. I used a traditional Japanese clay pot called ‘donabe’, which retains the heat very well. The best alternative is a thick metal pot or a cast-iron pot, which is not too deep and not too shallow.

6. Don't be alarmed by the piled vegetables in the pot. You will be surprised to see how much they shrink and release the water into the broth.

7. Do not boil the broth too long once soy milk is added. Soy milk curdles when it is heated because of the transformation of the protein in the milk.

8. After you finish eating the hot pot, there will be some broth left. I would strongly recommend that you eat udon noodles using the leftover broth. Udon noodles and sesame soy milk broth go very well. You may want to add beaten eggs to the udon noodles too. See the sample photo in the post.

I usually have udon noodles the next day because the hot pot makes me full and can’t eat udon immediately after the hot pot. If you are going to keep the broth until the next day, you should re-boil the broth, cool it down, then keep it in the fridge.

9. Nutrition per serving, assuming that ½ of the broth is consumed.

serving: 652g calories: 460kcal fat: 29g (37%) saturated fat: 7.9g (40%) trans fat: 0.0g polyunsaturated fat: 5.7g monounsaturated fat: 10g cholesterol: 55mg (18%) sodium: 951mg (41%) carbohydrates: 21g (8%) dietary fibre: 6g (21%) sugar: 11g protein: 33g vitamin D: 2mcg (11%) calcium: mg (50%) iron: 5.6mg (31%) potassium: 1354mg (29%)