hi everyone today I'm going to make
Sichuan hotpot hotpot is very popular in
China especially in Sichuan and you can
buy hotpot base from an Asian store
there are all kinds of base today
I'm going to show you how to make soup
base at home and here are all my spices
we'll go through it while we're cooking
let's get started okay first we'll heat
up the pan to medium heat
add 2 tablespoons oil
now we add 2 tablespoons spicy bean paste
sauté it until it's fragrant until the
oil is red meanwhile on the other stove
I'm heating up chicken stock it's about
10 cups ideally you make your own
chicken stock or they make a pork bone
soup but today what takes shortcuts we
use store-bought chicken stock it's a
medium heat I don't want to burn
this now we can add all the spices so we
have star anise seeds a few of them I have rock
sugar if you don't have you can use a
regular sugar cinnamon stick here's the
dried chili peppers I removed seeds &
Sichuan peppercorns also black peppercorns
and this is the (fennel) seeds we also have
few cloves of garlic and ginger slices
mix together
all depends on how spicy you want
you can see I didn't add so many chili peppers you
can double the amount or triple the
amount if you want you know having left
Sichuan for so many years I don't eat
as spicy as before okay so now we add
four cups of chicken stock and turn the
heat to high we'll bring this to boil
also got to add a few bay leaves
now the soup is boiling so we'll turn to
low to simmer for about 30 minutes also
cover it okay so after half hour we'll
turn off the heat now were going to assemble
the hot pot I have this pot you can see
it has a divider so this way I can have one
side non spicy one side is spicy but
if you don't have it I guess you can
just have spicy or not spicy at one time
so this side I have chicken stock
fill this up 2/3rd way and
that I soaked some dates goji berries
tomato so that is for our non spicy and
green onions and this is a soy bean
sprouts if you cannot find it you can
skip it okay this is our non spicy side
on the other side I have our spicy base
okay smells good
I think we can add a little bit more
soup this side to be even now our soup is
ready now let's turn on the stove okay hot pot
starts cooking and I'm going to
show you the dipping sauce in Sichuan we normally
use garlic minced garlic
green onions cilantro it's optional
I only put a little bit
little bit of salt
and sesame oil
so this is our dipping sauce mix-up
of course you can also use some people
use oyster sauce hoisin sauce
it's up to you a lot of options this is
typically how I make my dipping sauce
for those who never had the hot pot I'm
going to show you how to eat hot pot
first of all let me show you what I have
here for the hot pot this side is all
vegetables we have lotus roots
this is wood ear mushrooms and this
is enoki mushroom we also have corn
and this is dried noodles you can use
fresh noodles or any other sweet
potato noodles anything you want
anything you like to eat you can cook in
in a hot pot over here is more vegetable
we have lettuce leaves this is napa
cabbage firm tofu you know we don't use
the silky tofu soft tofu because it is easier
to fall apart while you're cooking this is
the bean curd sticks and they were dried so
I soaked about an hour and over here I
have all the seafood
I have crabmeat imitation crabmeat
here's fish cake and a few shrimp
here's fish filet because I didn't
have I didn't get any meat today you can
always incorporate chicken beef or pork
so that's pretty much it and to start
looks like a spicy side is boiling we
can start with some crab meat they cook
very quickly and you can add some
fish fillet they'll cook for
a few minutes and some tofu okay the crab
meat is done just take out and you
also can use a strainer like this to
scoop it out
nope come back okay place on your plate
let it cool off a little bit before you eat it
and the other side I can also add enoki
mushroom some bean curd sticks here's a
napa cabbage oops one fell into the spicy
side yeah I normally cook my vegetables
on the non spicy side vegetables soak a
lot of spice but if you can take the
heat of course you can cook on the
spicy side so here's the crab meat done
just dip a little bit sauce hmm
really good just enough spice as I said
if you like it spicer you can always add
more chili peppers very good I'm going
to continue cooking and eating hotpot
hope you guys can make at home and
enjoy with your family or friends thank
you so much for watching please
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