Food & Wine USA - (12)December 2019

AS A CHEF, I’VE SPENT A LOT OF HOLIDAYS IN

restaurant kitchens. Only in the past few years

have I had time to be home with my family.

While they would love for me to cook for

them, I’d rather relax than prepare a big din-

ner. Our compromise: We do hot pot. There

is a small amount of prep to be done (cutting

up vegetables, mainly), but using the butcher

counters at the local Asian and Latin markets

really helps to get the meats prefabricated

and done. We set up one big communal pot

in the middle of the table on top of a burner

and fill it with soup stock for cooking the raw

meats and vegetables. We lay out a spread of

raw mushrooms, cabbage, tofu, dumplings

(a good frozen one is not a terrible thing to

have around), daikon, shrimp, watercress, pea

shoots, thinly sliced beef, pork, chicken, and

basically anything else we can boil somewhat

quickly and pick out of the pot. Everyone also

gets a bowl to create their own dipping sauce,

so they can pick their food straight out of the

pot and dip it into their own customized sauce.

I like mine with raw egg, scallions, cilantro,

vinegar, garlic, sesame oil, and hot chile paste.

Toward the end of the meal, we’ll drop in some

noodles to cook in the now-extra-flavored

soup base so we can finish the meal with a

bowl of noodles.—NICK WONG, CHEF DE CUISINE,

UB PRESERV, HOUSTON

RECIPES P. 126

A HOT POT

HOLIDAY

Throw a hot pot
party anywhere with
a Cal-Mil walnut induc-
tion cooktop. ($280,
katom.com)

DECEMBER 2019 113