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Asian Hot Pot

Many cultures have a variation on a hot pot dish. The idea is that you have a central pot with something hot that you cook foods in and eat. Fondue is a hot pot dish. You coat food with a hot cheese sauce, for example. In Asia most countries have a variation on this type of communal eating. In Japan it is called shabu shabu so named for the swishing sound thinly sliced beef makes when you cook it quickly in a pot of boiling broth. There’s hot pot in China and in Korea. I love this dish. It is healthy, lowfat, and just plain fun. Often after eating the meats and vegetables, noodles are cooked in the boiling broth and it is eaten like a soup. It’s a great way to eat and we really enjoyed our hot pot dinner tonight. This one was really a fusion of styles borrowing from Japan and Korea.

Here is a picture of the place setting. The sauce you see flavors the meat and vegetables after it comes out of the hot broth. It was simply made by whisking together a tablespoon of peanut butter, a teaspoon of Korean gochujang sauce (a sweet and spicy red chili sauce), some sesame oil, some mirin, rice wine vinegar and a bit of water.

Some hot pots simply start with water and the meat and vegetables cooked in it flavor the broth by the end of the meal. I like to start with a broth already flavorful and seasoned. It makes for a more hearty and delicious meal. I started by taking some water and soaking dried shitake mushrooms in it for several hours. Then a large piece of konbu (Japanese seaweed) was added along with chopped garlic and some beef dashida powder. This was simmered for about an hour to create a flavorful broth and cook the mushrooms.

I have had inquiries about the dashi powders I refer to quite often. I buy Korean dashida from my local Asian market. Three staples I rely on a lot are shown below. There is a beef flavored soup powder, a clam flavored one, and a fish flavored dashi. They are great for quickly whipping up flavorful soups and broths.

My hot pot this evening featured beef. I love beef. Of course you could use anything you like in your hot pot. I used a well marbled rib eye steak this evening. You want a nice cut of beef that will be tender when barely cooked. I slice it very thinly so it cooks quickly in the simmering liquid. It’s easy to slice if it is still partially frozen.

Vegetables make up the greatest portion of the meal. You can use anything you like. This evening we had a lot of mushrooms. On the platter below you can see (clockwise from the top) napa cabbage, soybean sprouts, carrots, the cooked shitake mushrooms, fresh oyster mushrooms, and enoki mushrooms.

The meal takes a while to eat which is just fine for me. I like to eat slowly. It’s nice when the meal forces you to slow down and enjoy it. The meat and vegetables are cooked a little at a time, dipped in the spicy peanut sauce and enjoyed with wonderful company. After the meat and veggies are all consumed it is traditional to cook noodles in the remaining broth. Tonight I made homemade udon noodles. I was greatly inspired by Kevin at Closet Cooking and followed his recipe. Instead of flattening the dough out and cutting into strips I rolled and stretched them out by hand into ropes and cut them. They turned out great! Thanks Kevin!


I have to say by the end of the meal the broth was fantastic with the udon.

Garlic Beef

This evening I opened up a very unusual and interesting French wine from Languedoc. Minvervois to be specific. I thought this vegetative and peppery wine would go great with some Asian influenced beef. So I made a garlic beef dish served with steamed baby bok choy. I thinly sliced some ribeye steak and mixed it up with half an onion, quartered and sliced. I also added a head of garlic chopped, a splash of soy, mirin and a good shake of cornstarch. Oh, and some black pepper. This was simply stir fried in a wok until just under cooked. I added about 1/4 cup of water and covered it to let the sauce form from all the starch. It turned out pretty good. Quick and easy too. The wine matched perfectly.

*edit: I also added a healthy amount of chopped fresh ginger to the mix.

A Kimchee Tutorial

I don’t know that there is a more versatile condiment than kimchee. This staple of the Korean diet is made from napa cabbage that is allowed to ferment with red pepper. You can eat it with rice. You can eat it in soups. You can fry it up in a savory pancake batter. Anyway you like your kimchee, its sweet, spicy, and sour flavors will add to nearly any dish. Kimchee is actually easy to make and there is no substitute for fresh homemade stuff. There are as many ways to make kimchee as there are homes in Korea. Everyone has their own family recipe so you really can’t go wrong. I have a dear friend from Korea who taught me this simple way to make kimchee using fresh ingredients.

For my batch of kimchee I will be using the following:

2 large heads of napa cabbage
1 cup of salt
2 bunches of green onions
2 heads of garlic
about 2 inches of fresh ginger
about 2 cups of Korean red chili flakes
about 1/4 cup of Vietnamese nuoc mam fish sauce.

I would say the most important ingredient for getting the right flavor is the Korean red pepper. I have tried other red pepper powders but nothing else will give you that authentic taste. My kimchee uses a lot (2-3 large fistfulls). It is spicy but not really that spicy. Korean red pepper has a wonderfully sweet fruity taste that accompanies the spice. It is no where near as hot as a cayenne pepper. So don’t be shy about using this much. I buy it in large bags from my local Asian grocery.

To prepare the cabbages I first cut them into quarters so I can easily wash and drain them. They are then cut into pieces. You can cut them whatever size you want. I prefer them about 2 inches or so. I layer the cabbage pieces salting the layers liberally. This is allowed to sit for a couple of hours. The cabbage will drain off some of its water and will shrink in volume by about 1/3. The cabbage should be rinsed very well with cold water to remove as much salt as possible and drained.

Chop the garlic finely and mince the ginger. The onions should be cut on a bias. I prefer them about 1/2 inch in size but you can cut them larger or smaller to your liking. Mix all the rest of the ingredients together well. I find that my hands work best for mixing all the ingredients. Kimchee recipes usually have some kind of fish flavor. Some call for the addition of raw oysters. Some for the brine from fermented shrimp. I find that the Vietnamese nuoc mam sauce does a great job of imparting that subtle but not overpowering flavor of the fish. The sauce smells awful on its own but you will not taste it in the kimchee. Trust me. The kimchee will not be right without it. You can use more or less to taste. If I have it I usually add a splash of the juice from my last batch of kimchee to make sure the good souring bacteria are present.

Pack the kimchee tightly into a large jar or any non-reactive container you have loosely covered. Leave this sit at room temperature for 2-3 days and then store in the refrigerator. Be careful that your container has enough room at the top to allow the gases to escape. My jar shown above is probably too full and likely to spill kimchee liquid out of the top as it ferments. Kimchee will slowly ferment in the fridge. You can eat it as soon as you like. The younger it is the sweeter the cabbage tastes. If you like it more sour just let it sit longer. Actually you should try tasting it at different stages to see how it changes. In Korea they eat fresh kimchee as well as fermented kimchee. I like to let some kimchee stay in my fridge for months so I have some really sour stuff to cook with.