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.
- 150g/5.3oz pork mince (note 1)
- ¼ tsp grated ginger
- 1 tsp tobanjan/doubanjiang (chili bean sauce, note 2)
- 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
- 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)
- ¾cup (187.5ml/6.3fl oz) cup soy milk
- 1 tbsp white sesame paste (or tahini)
- 1 tbsp ground white sesame seeds
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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.
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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.
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Shiitake mushrooms: Trim the end of the stem off and halve the cap.
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Enoki mushrooms: Trim the cluster base and separate the mushrooms into small clusters.
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Tofu: Cut into 4 equal blocks.
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Green onion: Diagonally slice the stems into 5-7cm/2-2¾" long pieces.
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Garlic chives: Cut into 5cm/2” long strips.
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Put all the Meatball ingredients in a bowl and mix well.
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Divide the meat into 8 equal potions and make 8 meatballs.
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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.
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Put meatballs into the pot and cook until the surface of the meatballs becomes whitish.
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Add the stem part (white part) of the Chinese cabbage pieces, carrots, and shiitake mushrooms to the pot, clustering each ingredient together (note 6).
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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.
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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).
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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.
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In the meantime, mix the Sesame Soy Milk ingredients in a jug or a small bowl until the sesame paste is dissolved.
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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.
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When the broth starts bubbling around the edge, reduce the heat to low. When the broth starts boiling, turn the heat off (note 7).
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Bring the pot to the centre of the table with a ladle and serve with individual small bowls.
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To eat, transfer some meat and vegetables with the soy milk broth from the pot into your bowl. (note 8)
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%)