When it comes to cooking at the Harlow Chinese School, a lot of the prep work is already done for us. This is totally okay with me, as I am more than happy to primarily do the eating! with the first course of the New Year, Sun Yong wanted to do something a bit different, and prepare a Hot Pot Party. This was more of a big social event, where we were just cooking out own Hot Pot and talking with each other. Honestly, it felt like a great community activity and a lovely way to start off the New Year without any sort of pressure.
We found ourselves divided into groups of four, so Dann and I were paired with another couple, each with a hot pot in the middle of our table. Our table decided to have a spicy based to our hot pot, so Sun added a bunch of spicy chili paste that started boiling away. In front of us was a variety of different ingredients for our hot pot. There were tons of different foods to cook in our hot pot! We had a plate of sliced lamb and beef, which was slightly frozen as they took only seconds to cook. Another plate had tons of fish balls; crab balls, fish cakes, lobster cakes and so much more. Another plate had a mix of mushrooms and different times of tofu, along with some sliced rice cakes.
Many of these items we’d not had before. I am not the biggest fish fan, so I have not really enjoyed fish cake previously! I was quite excited to try them out. While our hot pots heated up, Sun Young had us build our sauce, which had a peanut butter base, some bean curd (Dann and I picked spicy) along with soy, spring onions, and Chinese Vinegar. This dip is what we used to dip all of our cooked items into, to give it a bit more flavor.
When we were boiling away, we dumped all of our fish in. There were a few other fresh vegetables at main table to dip into as well; spinach and cabbage, both of which cook quite quickly! I really enjoyed the cabbage and mushrooms myself, and some of the tofu was really interesting texturally. We also had plenty of noodles to enjoy too. When it came to the rice cakes, they really surprised me, as they were chewy in a super interesting way. Dann and I both have had Hot Pot before, but not Chinese hot pot, which is different from what we had tasted. It was quite fun to chat with everyone about what they had been up to recently and spend time eating until we were all too stuffed to eat anymore. It was also interesting seeing all the different types of pots that you can make hot pot in!
You can check out our other Days Out to see what else we’ve been up too!
I love Chinese food, so this would be the perfect cooking lesson for me. It sounds like it was so much fun!
That is so cool! I love all the different things you go to try. That sounds like a lot of fun!
Love the sound of this! What a fun way to learn new things and try yummy food too.
omg this is soooooo coool…I would love to learn how to cook or prepare for a hot pot party, this is sooooo much fun.
You seem to have loads of fun with Chinese version of hot pot. Something new to experience.
Oh the food here looks amazing! The Chinese hot pot looks very nice! Looks like a fun experience
That hot pot is making my mouth water. I will have to check if we have one around here.
Hot pot is one of my favorite things to eat, it’s so delicious and also refreshing. I love how tasty this looks though, I need to have Hot Pot again soon!