The first time I had hot pot was at the house of our good friends G. and J. in Minnesota. They take this meal very seriously, much to our great benefit. At that first hot pot, G. endeavored to win us over to his side in the great dipping sauce debate. J.'s sauce was barbecue based (not Kraft barbecue, more like Korean barbecue) with hot chilies, I think. But G's sauce featured an insane amount of minced garlic, an equal part of chopped cilantro, and some kind of sauce base that held the whole thing together. Unlike dipping sauces from bottles (which we use in our occasional sad attempts to simulate the hot pot experience), it takes only a small amount of this magical sauce to satisfy the dipping requirements of a giant pile of tasty hot pot items.
For years (literally) after that, I would occasionally have a taste memory of that sauce, which was incredibly flavorful and delicious. We attempted to make it on our own, but we could never figure out what the sauce base was that held everything together. And for some reason, we never managed to just ask G. what the sauce was made of- when we wanted to know, we couldn't get in touch, or when we were in touch, we forgot to ask.
But this past weekend, joy of joys, we had a visit from G. and J. and their very cute toddling son A. After a trip to Pike's market for some very fresh seafood, and another side trip to the Korean grocery store around the corner, we came home and put our guests to work in preparing hot pot. Warning: the pictures that follow may be disturbing to vegetarians. As well as anyone who has a problem with outright gluttony.
Turns out a fish head makes good soup for the hot pot!
One of the two kinds of tofu, one of the two kinds of mushrooms, and of course, ferns...
I am more excited than I look about eating this bok choy. And Naomi is exactly as excited as she looks about eating these noodles.
The whole gang, minus photographer Jim, as usual. Notice Muriel hanging around in the background. No soup for you, baby!
So what was the secret ingredient in the sauce (in the bottom right of the photo just above)? Fermented tofu, of course, with a liberal addition of sesame oil. There are a lot of ingredients in Chinese food that sound like they would go into a witch's brew. Don't even get me started on the century egg. And fermented tofu, in addition to having a questionable (though descriptive) name, has kind of a funky smell and often comes in intriguing little brown clay pots. But believe me, it has its charms.
I know we will not be able to make the sauce on our own as well as G. makes it. But that is not the only reason we were glad to have these visitors around. It's been a fantastic year for visitors at our house, and it is one of the best things in the world to have good friends around our table. Come on over! The pot is hot.
Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving!
