HOTPOT STEAMBOAT

Hotpot! One of those essentials anyone cannot miss if they are actually Asian, especially if you are Chinese.

Lets start from basics: How to make the stock base.

Ingredients:
Chicken or pork bones
Red dates
Dried scallops
Wolfberries
Water

Put all the ingredients into a pot and boil. Once the water boils, lower the flame to a simmer. The longer you boil these stuff, the better the soup base gets. Usually after the soup boils, I would transfer everything into a slow cooker (another Asian wonder). So as the slow cooker boils, I can prepare other ingredients for the hotpot.

What else do you need for hotpot?

Things like these:

Vegetable stuff: Oyster mushrooms, golden straw mushrooms, shitake mushrooms, wong bok (long cabbage), xiao bai cai and whatever else you like

Meats/Seafoods: Chicken strips (marinated in oyster sauce and pepper), pork strips (marinated too), fish strips (marinate with light soya sauce, ginger juice, shaoxing wine and pepper), prawns, yong tau foo and other stuffs.