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Hot Pot Japan Style

I distinctly remember a discussion about hot pots awhile back. I think LDHS had a thread about a neighbor giving his family a hot pot and the stuff they use in it. I remember promising to post back with a hot pot meal our family does, so here's a simple hot pot we had last night.
 
We use a clay pot on a butane powered burner. This is about as basic as you can get and is mostly veggie heavy. Usually we will also add shabu shabu style pork or beef, but I wanted to keep it simple this time, and this is as simple as it gets.
 
Chopped Bok Choy and welsh onion, enoki mushroom, fish, shrimp meat balls, and chikuwa (the hollow thingies, which are fish cake), tofu, and udon noodles. Soup is basic kombu (kelp) dashi.
 
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After most of the ingredients have been eaten, we finish off by making a sort of porridge from left over rice, egg, ponzu sauce, and cheese. Here's a link to a video on Instagram. The video starts speeding up towards the end b/c I was running out of frames.
 
And here's the porridge topped off with just the right amount of Reaper powder courtesy of Judy @ Pepperlover.
 
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I'm drinking Green Bullet Triple IPA right now, and that hot pot dish looks delicious! I want to jump through my screen and get a huge bowl right now.
 
Best steamboat/hot pot soup I've had was in Cambodia.  Ultra thin sliced beef and chicken, bone marrow, herbs, veggies, awesome stock and whatever seasonings you want into your bowl.  I don't remember the name of the restaurant but it was in Siem Reap somewhere... :neutral:
 
Yours looks mighty tasty too.  But...why is Welsh onion in a Japanese dish? lol  Surely you mean ネギ?
 
Deathtosnails said:
Best steamboat/hot pot soup I've had was in Cambodia.  Ultra thin sliced beef and chicken, bone marrow, herbs, veggies, awesome stock and whatever seasonings you want into your bowl.  I don't remember the name of the restaurant but it was in Siem Reap somewhere... :neutral:
 
Yours looks mighty tasty too.  But...why is Welsh onion in a Japanese dish? lol  Surely you mean ネギ?
 
Negi IS Welsh Onion ;-D
 
And yeah, ultra thin sliced meat of any kind works wonders on these hot pots. My favorite is kimuchinabe (kimchi hotpot). The porridge made after a pot of this stuff is freaking delicious, especially when you top it off with some FIRE. Another one I like is motsunabe which is made of beef/pork tripe. YUMMAY.
 
For the hotpot I posted above, b/c the broth is so light the ingredients are dipped two different sauces: ponzu mixed with diced negi and shichimi or gomadare (sesame sauce/dip whatever you wanna call it). And when we make the porridge, everyone adds their bowl of ponzu back into the pot; not terribly sure why but it's always been done this way in our family.
 
I luuuurv me some porridge.  'Specially cambodian (Bor bor siach c'hrook) or vietnamese (Chao Ga).  Don't get me started on Korean hotpots either ;)  Dang this place makes me HUNGRY!
 
Deathtosnails said:
I luuuurv me some porridge.  'Specially cambodian (Bor bor siach c'hrook) or vietnamese (Chao Ga).  Don't get me started on Korean hotpots either ;)  Dang this place makes me HUNGRY!
 
Haha love me some Chao Ga! Have not been able to replicate my parents recipe over here though, b/c Jasmine rice is hard to come by and Japanese rice is just too darn sticky.
 
Never had any Cambodian food, may have to go seek some out in Tokyo sometime. Hopefully I'll find some!
 
What can you tell us about binchotan? I've been watching little tabletop kenro (i think that's what they are called) and I'm curious regarding the temp the wood burns at - but there's so much health related crap re: binchotan that it kind of muddies the waters when you try to learn about the bbq use of it!
 
grantmichaels said:
What can you tell us about binchotan? I've been watching little tabletop kenro (i think that's what they are called) and I'm curious regarding the temp the wood burns at - but there's so much health related crap re: binchotan that it kind of muddies the waters when you try to learn about the bbq use of it!
 
I'll be honest I can't tell you much more than the info you find online re: Binchotan. It's sort of a general term for charcoal here now, but there is true binchotan which is made in Wakayama Prefecture. The characters for the name literally translate to "long providing charcoal" which makes more sense when said "long burning charcoal"
 
From what I've gathered from Japanese websites, Binchotan slowly rises to about 760 Celsius and holds that temperature for a long period, making it ideal for long smokes; add a fan to it and you can increase the temp to 1200 celsius.
 
--EDIT: Keep in mind the above was information from a comparison with locally produced black charcoal. So YMMV.--
 
As far as the tabletop CONro, I've never seen one that uses wood/charcoal for obvious reasons. As far as I know they are butane powered. You could of course place on top of that a container that burns wood. Then you could use it to make for example authentic yakitori or unagi.
 
Yeah, the conro are in a moat to insulate the table from the hot clay bbq where the wood burns under the grate ...

It's obviously not a good indoor (at home) setup, but I guess it's commonly done on tabletop outdoors somewhere, although that might be here Stateside - I dunno ...

Interesting, though ...

I'm going to explore the Asian pickle, soup, and bbq space pretty thoroughly over the next month, finding solutions to improve a swath of my diet ...

I've been accumulating cookware and ingredients slowly all throughout the year in anticipation of this, so I'm a bit giddy to finally start to do this - seeing as though I tried to launch into this years ago (here at THP) ...

Cheers!
 
grantmichaels said:
Yeah, the conro are in a moat to insulate the table from the hot clay bbq where the wood burns under the grate ...

It's obviously not a good indoor (at home) setup, but I guess it's commonly done on tabletop outdoors somewhere, although that might be here Stateside - I dunno ...

Interesting, though ...

I'm going to explore the Asian pickle, soup, and bbq space pretty thoroughly over the next month, finding solutions to improve a swath of my diet ...

I've been accumulating cookware and ingredients slowly all throughout the year in anticipation of this, so I'm a bit giddy to finally start to do this - seeing as though I tried to launch into this years ago (here at THP) ...

Cheers!
 
Ahhh okay I think I know what you are talking about. The tables with an embedded BBQ. Those come in different types here but I have only ever seen them at Yakiniku (Korean BBQ) places. At those places though, its usually an insulated hole, inside which fits a clay pot that holds the charcoal. An exhaust fan fitted over the top of the table to provide some air circulation and of course to remove smoke.
 
You'll have to keep us updated on your exploration, if there is a thread somewhere link me and I'll definitely follow.
 
re: asian pickles, here in Japan one of the most popular styles you can make at home involves fermenting veggies in rice bran (komenuka)
 
Will do. I think my initial mission will be nukazuke using nuka-doko ...

The thing is, I've never even had it before, so that makes it a little harder or easier, depending on your POV, I guess ...

I'm interested in the relative healthiness of the cuisine, and in pickling/fermenting in general, so I find myself somewhat drawn to starting my adventure w/ Asian pickles ...

Thanks for all the info!
 
Will do. I think my initial mission will be nukazuke using nuka-doko ...

The thing is, I've never even had it before, so that makes it a little harder or easier, depending on your POV, I guess ...

I'm interested in the relative healthiness of the cuisine, and in pickling/fermenting in general, so I find myself somewhat drawn to starting my adventure w/ Asian pickles ...

Thanks for all the info!

Ahhh nice you are familiar with the terms already. Sweet! I'll warn you before hand, nuka-doko (made of komenuka) is very.... Pungent lol
 
Just that one so far, but I'll check out what you mentioned as well ...

Thanks for the tip!

I'm just reviving my old thread in the Cooking With Fire section for this stuff ... it's going to be pepper-heavy (part of my pref for Asian is that REALLY spicy sits on the cuisine so nicely - also Indian for me, but this is all quite subjective, I realize) ...
 
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