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Three Elements - Hot Pot "Three Elements" Chinese Restaurant offers three types of dining, including "Hot Pot".
Cooking methodFrozen meat is sliced deli-thin to prepare it for hot pot cooking. Slicing frozen meat this way causes it to roll up during cooking. Meats may include lamb, beef and chicken. The cooking pot is fueled by a portable butane gas stove. Meat or vegetables are loaded individually into the hot cooking broth by chopsticks, and cooking time can take from 1 to 15 minutes, depending on the type of food. Meat should be cooked at the very least 20 seconds. Other hot pot dishes include leafy vegetables, mushrooms, seafood, and noodles. It can be eaten bland to very spicy, depending on how much spice has been put in the stew. At Three Elements we offer a clear broth, or a chilli hot pot, or a 'half and half' in a sectioned bowl. That is, the broth is divided into a yin and yang shape - a bubbling, fiery red chilli broth on one side, and a cooler white chicken broth on the other. This is a style popular in Xishuangbanna, Yunnan Province in southwestern China near the border with Myanmar There are often disagreements between different styles of hot pot enthusiasts. Some like to place items into the hot pot at a relaxed, leisurely pace, enjoying the cooking process, while others prefer to put everything in at once and wait for the hotpot to return to a boil. Ingredients
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Three Elements are Stir Fry, Hot Pot and Chinese BBQ Background Chinese hot pot dates back more than 1,000 years. Often called "Mongolian hot pot", it is unclear if the dish actually originates in Mongolia. Mongol warriors had been known to cook with their helmets, which they used to boil food, but the complexity and specialization of the utensils and the method of eating it means hot pot better suited to a sedentary culture. A nomadic household will avoid such highly specialized tools, to save volume and weight during migration. The preparation method and the equipment are unknown in the cuisine of Mongolia of today. Hot pot cooking seems to have spread to northern China during the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-906). In time, regional variations developed with different ingredients such as seafood. By the Qing Dynasty, the hot pot became popular throughout most of China. Today in many modern homes, particularly in the big cities, the traditional coal-heated steamboat or hot pot has been replaced by electric, gas or induction cooker versions. Because hot pot styles change so much from region to region, many different ingredients are used. |
Typical Beijing hot pot is eaten indoors during the winter. More modern eateries offer the sectioned bowl with differently flavored broths in each section. More traditional or older establishments serve a fragrant, but mild, broth in the hot pot, which is a large brass vessel heated by burning coals in a central chimney. Broth is boiled in a deep, donut-shaped bowl surrounding the chimney. One of the most famous variations is the Chongqing or Chungking "má là" (Chinese: 麻辣 — "numb and spicy") hot pot, to which a special spice known as huā jiāo (Chinese: 花椒 — "flower pepper" or Pepper) is added. The Manchurian hot pot (Chinese: 東北酸菜火鍋) uses plenty of Suan cai (Chinese sauerkraut) to make the pot's stew sour. A Cantonese variation includes mixing a raw egg with the condiments to reduce the amount of 'heat' absorbed by the food, thereby reducing the likelihood of a sore throat after the steamboat meal, according to Chinese herbalist theories. In the Taiwanese hot pot, also called shabu-shabu due to Japanese influence, people eat the food with a dipping sauce consisting of shacha sauce and raw egg yolk. In Vietnam, a hot pot is called lẩu, and the sour soup called canh chua is often cooked in hot pot style (called lẩu canh chua). The generic term for a salted fish hot pot is lẩu mắm. |