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Hotpot

Regional variation

Taiwan
In Taiwanese cuisine, it is very common to eat the food with a dipping sauce consisting of shacha sauce and raw egg yolk with stir-fry beef. (沙茶牛肉炉). One of the most authentic hotpot restaurant that is widely praised by locals is a hot pot restaurant called “Xiao Haozhou’s sha-cha beef hot pot”. This restaurant is founded in the 1949 by a man named Musheng Chen. The popularity of this hot pot restaurant and their unique secret recipe of sha-cha sauce has become one of the iconic sha-cha sauce brands in Taiwanese cuisine nowadays. Originally, this hotpot is only assorted with light broth and dip with sha-cha source. Influence by the Japanese cuisine culture, the sha-cha source is now commonly serve with raw egg yolk.

The Taiwanese also develop their Taiwanese style of chili hotpot originate from the Sichuan chili hotpot style. In the Taiwanese style of chili hotpot, people how barely tolerate spicy favor are included. Rather than using animal offal as the main ingredient, the Taiwanese style of chili hotpot use seafood and beef with their main ingredient due to the Taiwan locational characteristics of nearing the sea.

In Tainwan, people usually have hotpot meal during the Chinese Lunar New Year’s Eve. Different from the usual days of cooking hotpot with whatever ingredients they like, the Taiwanese follow the principles of Wu-Xing (the five element principle) when cooking the Lunar year Tainwan hotpot. They believe that by follow the current principle of this five elements, then the food they eat can gain a “mutual generatuion sequence” (xiangsheng 相生) that is beneficial to the ones that eat them. In Taiwanese hotpot, these five elements are represented with the food in five color: white, black, yellow, red, green. Therefore, the five indispensable food are, the stew turnip that represents white, mushroom or jew that represents black, burdock or pumpkin that represents yellow, carrot or tomato that represents red and reddish leaves that represents green. Moreover, locals believe that more color there are shown in a hotpot, the more different nutrients they will gain from eating. The reason why it is so important for Taiwanese people to consume hot pot during the Lunar year is that hot pot not only represents rich nutrition and blessings for family health, it also represents family reunion and harmony.

Japan
Japanese Hot pot is known as Nabemono in Japanese. Various Ingredients are cooked in a soup with dashi, soy sauce, and mirin and are seasoned with chill powder, yuzu zest and spring onions. Every region of the country has its style of hot pot with its regional ingredients. But as a base, all Japanese hot pots have meats and other proteins, vegetables, mushrooms, noodles and some other ingredients such as eggs and tofu.

Popular type of Japanese hotpot include:

1. Yoke-nabe (寄せ鍋)

Yosenabe is the most fundamental Japanese hotpot style, it can be simply called as the “everything hotpot”. This hotpot is assorted with a dash-based broth with no constraints to the ingredients. Chicken, seafood, tofu and vegetables are the common ingredients.

2. Sukiyaki (すき焼き)

Sukiyaki is a popular Japanese style hotpot assorted with a sweet and salty soy sauce-based broth, featuring with thinly sliced beef for pork and vegetables. Traditionally, sukiyaki is cooked in a cast-iron pot with the thinly slice beef or pork being seared first in the iron pot and served with dipped raw egg. After the sliced beef has finished, the hotpot will then add broth and other ingredients such as tofu and vegetables into the pot. There are two different sukiyaki style receipt in Japan, the Kansai style and the Kanto style. The Kansai style specifically sear the mean before putting other ingredients and broth into the pot while the Kanto style make the sukiyaki sauce into the broth directly and serve all the ingredients at the same time. The nowadays common sukiyaki hotpot receipt combine both the Kansai and Kanto style.

3. Shabu Shabu (しゃぶしゃぶ)

Shabu Shabu is a popular Japanese style hotpot similar to sukiyaki while assorted with a clear kombu-based dashi broth, featuring with thinly sliced beef for pork and vegetables. Ponzu or sesame are typical dip source served in Shabu Shabu. The name “Shabu Shabu” is a Japanese onomatopoeia that indicates the “swish swish” sounds when storing mean and vegetables with chopsticks in the hotpot. Traditionally, Shabu Shabu is cooked in a Japanese clay pot called donate (土鍋). The uncooked ingredients are typically served with two large plates before the meal start, including one plate for the sliced meat and the other one with the vegetables and tofu respectively. Shabu Shabu is similar to sukiyaki with the slice beef slightly thicker than the one in sukiyaki.

4. Oden (おでん)

Oden is a classic winter comfort dish in Japan that is usually found in specialty restaurant and convenience stores. Oden is assorted with a soy sauce-based dashi broth featuring with fish cake, fried tofu, mochi, boiled eggs, konnyaku, kombo and vegetables. Oden has become a popular night snack for the locals with its one-pot dish characteristics, it has also spread to other Asian countries such as China where it has been called (关东煮).

5. Chanko-nabe (ちゃんこ鍋)

Chanko-nabe is also called Sumo stew is assorted with a rich chicken-base dashi broth featuring all kinds of vegetable and proteins. While all other Japanese hotpot are frequently served during fall and winter, Chanko-nabe is particularly popular in spring. Chanko-nabe is traditionally served to sumo wrestlers for massive quantities wrestlers to gain weight. Therefore, Chanko-nabe is popular with its richness in protein as a hotpot.

6. Yodofu (湯豆腐)

Yodofu, also known as Hot Tofu is a vegan-friendly dish assorted with miso broth featuring with tofu. Yodofu specifically highlight the delicate flavor of soft tofu and is served with ponzu or sesame as a dip sauce. Yodofu is popular among restaurants in Kyoto.