Sunday, March 25, 2007

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.

hotpot 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.

14 comments:

  1. That looks wonderful! Yum :0)

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  2. You sooo IMPRESS me. I will have to try this some night at our house. My husband would be THRILLED:)

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  3. Wow - the food looks amazing! May I have dinner at your house? LOL!

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  4. I'm impressed!!! We can't even manage to have a full coffee these days......

    Deb
    (Olivia's lucky mom)

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  5. I am learning so much on this blog! Its been wonderful! We can not wait to be logged in!

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  6. I had missed your awesome food posts :)

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  7. Wow...what a feast!

    Congrats Eammon on the promotion!

    Miss Maisie is a cutie and Happy 3 Months! Only the beginning...

    Keep smilin!

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  8. Hi guys,
    How adventurous. I never would have thought of trying to make hotpot on our own. I too look forward to the day when we can share hotpot again. Nice to see things going so well. Loved the rabbit photos - has me very curious about our first trip to the petting zoo. Be well.

    PS - One of these days we will get Maisie's "dance" video on a DVD and send it to you. We've watched it a number of times and never stop laughing.

    Jim

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  9. Oh.my.god. I feel completely inadequate as a cook!! You are amazing woman!!! It looks incredible too...

    I loved that last comment- the crossed out "remembering the good times" aka Maisie screaming! Too funny.

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  10. My gosh. There is no way that I could ever prepare such a feast. Your family is very lucky!!!!

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  11. You really are amazing I still can barely get a pot of water boiling for pasta!!!

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  12. Anonymous3:45 PM

    You are so talented!

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  13. Wow, looks like a wonderful feasts! Better not sleep too well or E will expect dinners like that all the time. Oh, congrats to him on his new position!

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  14. Ohhhh, J, K and K are bitterly disappointed that we weren't there to share in the fun! I just got so sad that we haven't seen you in three months.

    Congrats to Eammon!

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