Hot pot

Tonight we had plans to recreate one of our wonderful dining experiences from China with one of the other couples from our travel group. Unfortunately our dinner had to be rescheduled but Eammon had his heart and mouth set on hot pot. With this being such a good week with Maisie and I both sleeping better, Eammon getting appointed to a new position at work and tomorrow being our three month Anniversary of being home with Maisie, I decided to just go ahead and make hot pot for dinner.

From the little bit of research that I've done on hot pot, it appears there are three different varieties. The first being plain boiling water devoid of flavor or just a mild broth. The second is a slightly spicier version in which the broth has a little pepper dropped in. Then there's the version that we had whilst in Chongqing, a giant bowl of fiery red, a metal bowl filled with red peppers, Sichuan peppercorns, chili oil, and flaming hot water, all mouth numbingly delicious.

What a feast we had and there are lots of leftovers to keep the mouth tingle going. In the picture you can see the electric skillet filled with all things hot and spicy. To the left is a larger bowl containing garlic infused oil which is used to dip the food into, after it has been cooked, to help rinse off some of the peppers and spice. The smaller bowl contains what the package calls, "indispensable condiment" or hot pot sauce. Both Eammon and I found it quite dispensable and didn't bother with it. The upper left plate contains beef, shrimp, pork and quail eggs. The plate to the right contains mushrooms, baby bok choy, potatoes and sweet potatoes. The plate in the forefront contains lotus root, dumpling filled with a mixture of pork, shrimp and leeks, fish balls filled with shrimp and finally bamboo root. Then just for Eammon, a nice cold Tsingtao.

Both Eammon and I found it just as delicious as what we had in China but we missed our Chongqing hot pot buddies, B, B & RG as well as J, K and K. We thought of you and remembered a screaming Maisie the good times and can't wait until we can all get together again and enjoy this as a group.