In this recipe, you will find out how to prepare the ingredients and make a delicious hot pot quickly using ready-made hot pot broth. The focus in this recipe is more on the preparation of meat and vegetables than actual cooking because there isn’t much to show you when it comes to cooking ingredients in a pot.
- 200-250g/7.1-8.8oz thinly sliced pork (note 1)
- 200g/7.1oz Chinese cabbage (note 2)
- 50g/1.8oz carrot (note 2)
- 30g/1.1oz Shimeji mushrooms (note 2)
- 30g/1.1oz enoki mushrooms (note 2)
- 60g/2.1oz green onion (note 2)
- 100g/3.5oz momen tofu (note 2)
- 100g/3.5oz shirataki (note 3)
- 2 broth cubes (note 4)
- 400ml/0.8pt water (note 5)
- 2 broth capsules
- 350ml/0.7pt water (note 5)
- About 350ml/0.7pt broth
- 30-50ml/1-1.7 fl oz water
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Chinese cabbage: Cut the leaves crosswise into 4cm/1½“ long pieces.
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Carrot: Halve the carrot vertically (or omit this if the root is thin), then slice into 5mm thick pieces.
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Shimeji mushrooms: Remove the bottom part of the stems that are clustering all the mushrooms together and divide into a few clusters.
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Enoki mushrooms: Trim the end of the stems that are woody. If mushrooms are stuck together at the bottom, divide it into smaller bunches.
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Green onion: Cut diagonally into 6cm / 2⅜" long pieces.
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Tofu: Quarter the block of tofu.
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Shirataki: I used knotted shirataki, but if you are using strands of shirataki, cut them into manageable pieces 10cm/4” long.
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Put the broth ingredients of your choice in a pot. If you are using condensed broth, bring it to a boil to dilute the condensed broth into water (note 6).
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Add the vegetables and meat, clustering each ingredient together.
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When the broth starts bubbling around the edge, reduce the heat to medium low to low and cook until the meat and vegetables are cooked through.
1. You can substitute pork with chicken, tsukune (Japanese chicken mince balls) or fish fillet. Chicken should be cut into bite-size pieces.
Tsukune can be made with chicken mince, pork mince, or combination of chicken and pork.
Beef is not often used, but thinly sliced beef can go well with the kimchi flavoured hot pot.
Fish fillet can be any fish with white firm flesh, such as cod, snapper, perch, and flat head, as well as salmon. You can also use shellfish, but I usually add only a small amount of shellfish (clams in shells or oysters without shells) in addition to meat.
2. You can pick and choose other vegetables that are commonly used for hot pots. Please refer to my Collection – Hot Pot, where you can see various vegetables used in different hot pot dishes, including preparation.
3. Shirataki are koynnyaku made into thin noodles. They are used in hot pot, soups, and stir-fries. Because the long strands are difficult to pick up, people used to take a small bunch of strands and knot them by hand before cooking. These days you can buy a pack of knotted shirataki, which I used today.
You can of course use un-knotted shirataki. But you may want to cut the long strands into a manageable length.
4. I used Seafood Broth (Ajinomoto brand) cubes, although I didn’t include fish fillet in the ingredients.
Please refer to the hot pot dishes listed in my Collection – Hot Pot, which show you how to prepare particular meat and vegetables.
5. The instruction on the pack says 180ml/6.1fl oz of water per cube, but I add extra water because it evaporates while cooking the meat and vegetables and I feel that the broth becomes a touch salty for my liking.
6. In the case of cubed powder, you need to break the cube into small bits while the water is heating up.