Photo from the documentary film Living as a Living Buddha
In the hot pot jungle, where there are thousands of miles of different winds and hundreds of miles of different customs, the pots, ingredients, and dipping sauces each express their own views, so that people in each city have their own flavors.
Like the north of my place, the roaring stove loved the slightly curled mutton, if you go to the clouds and Guizhou, All in the choice with a bowl of unique dipping sauce, a pot and trouble say Bye Bye.
Photo from the documentary "living as a living Buddha"
Each pot into each eye, I will say a few of my favorite hot pot.
The North: No hotpot is complete without shabu-shabu
The days are getting slightly colder, with Tianjin silverfish and purple crab, Cangzhou hot-pot chicken, Beijing scorpion, and Xinjiang earthenware hotpot...... a "Great Wall" of hotpots quietly rising in the North.
Photo from the documentary "Boiling Hot Pot"
But if you want to experience the joys of a Qianlong imperial banquet in the north, you can't go wrong with Beijing's copper pot shabu-shabu.
Photo from the documentary "Boiling Hot Pot"
"A copper pot, a bowl of water, two or three ginger and green onions," the base of the pot is so simple, so the ingredients and dipping sauces must be extraordinarily elaborate.
Sheep in Inner Mongolia, sentenced to life by love, came all the way to Beijing, wanting to mix a eunuch as a eunuch, but was cut to pieces by the executioner.
Photo from the documentary "Boiling Bar Hot Pot"
The most tender cucumber strips, big three forks, small three forks, on the brain, grinding crotch and other seven different parts of the meat, each with a clear texture, the red lean meat like a rose temptation, the white fat meat such as jade crystal, the hand-cut thin as a cicada, but also to perform a standing plate does not fall.
Photo from the documentary "Boiling Hot Pot"
The charcoal-fired copper pot of broth boiled, a piece of lamb into the pot, accompanied by the walls of the pot blowing up the sound of the piercing la, the soup swirled and jumped, the soul of the last life sealed in the hot pot is about to be lifted.
Don't lose focus at this moment, and don't take your chopsticks away from the mutton, because in just a few seconds, the bright red meat will change color and emit a fascinating aroma, as if you can hear it shouting, "Eat me up! Eat me up!
Photo from the documentary "Boiling Hot Pot"
Time and again, you can't wait to clip it out of the pot, dip it in the chocolatey, silky texture of the elaborate dipping sauce, and take a bite that will take you back to the grasslands.
As for what this dip is, you don't need me to tell you - it's sesame sauce. Its only partner in shabu-shabu, in addition to the sesame sauce, the marinated shrimp oil, red fermented bean curd, chive blossom sauce, and red chili oil are all perfect matches, blossoming into a multidimensional flavor that will make your mouth tingle.
Photo from the documentary "Living Buddha"
After you've finished eating, remember to add a clove or two of sweet garlic and a crispy sesame seed cracker to make this royal feast complete.
Guizhou: A wild and wonderful place for dipping
Chen says Guizhou is a rare museum of flavors. It's a fusion of multiple ethnicities and ingredients, and not only do a hundred hot pots compete, but Guiyang has become the city with the most hot pot restaurants per capita in the country.
Photo from the documentary "Boiling Hot Pot"
Fish hot pot in sour soup is the star of the show, after all, "three days do not eat acid, walking to hit the leap", a mouthful of sour soup, Guizhou people can "eat".
But did you realize that "fish in sour soup" is actually a famous dish in Guizhou?
Photo from the documentary "Boiling Hot Pot"
Traditional sour soups come in two varieties: red sour and white sour. For red sour, the ingredients are mainly tomato-based. Local tomatoes, which reside in a vat for a year, are commanded by microorganisms to break down and metabolize them, slowly fermenting the richness that hits the palate.
Photo from the documentary "Boiling Hot Pot"
White acid, also not acetic acid as you understand it, is mostly fermented from rice broth and rice water, thick and clear, with a sweet aftertaste in its fragrance.
Whatever the acid, the sour soup fish stew turns into a hot pot. And it's not the only one, spicy chicken, pickled cabbage and hooves, stewed chicken with three fresh ingredients, stewed pork ribs and pig's feet, and squid and hooves stewed with local chicken ...... These are all 'hot pot bases' unique to Guizhou.
Photo from the web
The above, a little red, a little sticky, and looking like porridge it is Guizhou's real hot pot ace - bean and rice hot pot.
The pot of kidney beans from the Guizhou Dabi region, with its own dense and fragrant texture, is destined to serve as the main character of the hot pot. The beans and rice are stewed for a long time, secreting their own starch in the water, and the sandy, thick texture is just the first step to success.
Photo from the web
Next, add the long-simmered pork bone broth, then the dried chili peppers, star anise and other spices in the frying pan, and finally add a few slices of mushrooms, a few bean sprouts, and when you hear the sound of boiling, the joyous symphony of the hot pot begins.
Photo from the documentary I Pink You
If you want to be the true conductor of this symphony, you'll also need a 'soul dip'. The combination of soy sauce, chili, origami and soft whistles is a favorite idlo of Doumi Hot Pot.
Roll the ingredients that have drunk their fill of beans and rice in the dipping water, and a piece goes down, swishing in your mouth.
Finally, the last, pick up a bowl of rice, will be mixed into a variety of meat and vegetarian ingredients soup base, without hesitation poured into it, with chopsticks to let the two of them battle thousands of back and forth, all ate, which is the real "Guizhou brand spleen and stomach".
Beef, lamb and yam hot pot | Image from the documentary "Boiling Hot Pot"
If you're still looking for a challenge to the hot pot ceiling, then the shrimp and sour hot pot and beef, lamb and yam hot pot are a great way to refresh your knowledge of hot pot flavors.
From ancient times to modern times, from the north to the south, from the sea to the land, no matter what flavor of hot pot, in that the hot current surging, can always make people's limbs and bones to become fluent, so that people no longer afraid of the cold, so that the annoying life to get catharsis.
In the cold winter, hot pot, but also our boiling life.