Chinese Hot Pot

Famous Hot Pot Restaurants in Beijing:

Hot Pot used to be favored only in winter, but recently Hot Pot also appears on tables in other seasons. Some people especially like eating it in summer, sitting in front of a fire with an air-conditioner working behind and saying it couldn't have been better!

The pot is made of brass with a wide outer rim around a chimney in which the charcoal burns to heat the soup. When the soup is boiling, dinners dip thin slices of frozen raw meat in the soup where it gets quick boiled and then put them into a kind of sauce like sesame or soy sauce, chili oil, and vinegar. The meat can be beef, mutton, chicken, fish, prawn, lots of things but not pork if you are in an Islamic restaurant. Vegetables such as mushrooms, bean curds can be quick boiled as well. Of course, you can also try whatever you like.

At present, there are three styles of hot pot, Mogolian style, Sichuan style and Cantonese style.

The main ingredient of the Mongolian-style hot pot is raw mutton taken from tiny sheep raised in inner Mongolia. Chefs cut the iced mutton into paper---thin slices and prepare a source containing ingredients like sesame butter, soy sauce, chili oil, chopped chives, glutinous rice wine, shrimp sauce, vinegar and Chinese parsley. The traditional hot-pot meal is not considered complete without bean curd, sesame pancakes and Chinese cabbages.

The Sichuan hot pot, like the rest of that humid and populous province's cuisine, tastes very spicy. The broth is flavored with chili peppers and other pungent herbs and spices. The main ingredients include hot pepper, Chinese crystal sugar and wine. Slices of kidney, chicken breast, beef tripe, goose intestines, spring onion, soya bean sprouts, mushrooms eel, duck and sea cucumber form the meat content of the dish.

The southern Cantonese style is sweeter and features the seafood ingredients that have become popular in most Cantonese eateries. Fresh shrimps, scallops, crab meat, white eels and scuttle fish form the staples of this hot pot style. They are served with a sweetish white sauce.