Saturday: Szechuan Hot Pot

Last night we made a Szechuan hot pot following the recipe from Land of Plenty. This one has been on our list for a while but we kept putting it off.

I pretty much followed the stock recipe as written to within the limits of my ability to find the ingredients. We still haven't managed to find a pot for meat fondue that we like, so I we did the hot pot in the 1qt All Clad sitting on our cheese fondue stand. For the two of us this was a perfectly viable solution, but it would not work for more people.

To put in the stock we had thin strips of carrot, broccoli, mushroom slices, spring onions, slivers of chicken thigh, smoked bacon, and thin slices of lamb. I also cut up some daikon as a cooling snack.

Also on the table was chopped garlic, dark soy sauce, and sesame oil to make a dipping sauce. And, naturally, a batch of rice.

This was some extremely happy-making food. One thing that's worth thinking about changing, particularly with guests, is straining the stock before bringing it to the table. Having to fish through the ginger slices and chilis isn't too bad, but I'm not a big fan of biting down on whole Szechuan pepper corns.

good thing I cook better than I frame pictures