Zhou Guanyu Wants You To Make Hot Pot At Home
I promise — it's totally possible to make hot pot at home!
Welcome to Grand Prix Gastronomy! In 2024, this series is dedicated to cooking the favorite dishes of every driver on the grid.
The Foods That Zhou Guanyu Loves
Hot pot has really skyrocketed in popularity (at least in the Western mind) in the last few years. Basically, hot pot is not just a meal but also a social experience and a process; a pot of flavorful broth is left simmering away in the center of the table while everyone around the table dunks in raw ingredients — meat, veggies, noodles — and lets them simmer until they're fully cooked. This is what Zhou Guanyu has proclaimed to be his favorite meal.
Now, I know this seems like the kind of thing you can't make at home, and I will admit that it is certainly a meal that better lends itself to a communal restaurant experience — but I promise that you can whip up homemade hot pot! And I'm going to teach you how.
Of course, it would make a lot of sense took make Zhou Guanyu's favorite dish during the Chinese Grand Prix weekend, but I had some choices to make. China is the only new race venue of 2024, which means it’s the only country whose national dish I haven't cooked. I really wanted to stick true to the original roots of Grand Prix Gastronomy, so I wanted to cook that dish. As a result, I've placed Zhou's dish alongside the Singapore Grand Prix — where hot pot is actually known as a steamboat!
This Week's Recipes
Hot pot depends less on following a recipe and more on the supplies you have, the ingredients you choose, and the process of cooking you undertake! I've linked a few of the references I turned to for this edition of Grand Prix Gastronomy, which I hope will help you.
I recommend you have two things to get the total experience: A divided pot and a robust hot plate. (Our hot plate was not powerful enough to get the soups boiling properly, so we ultimately ended up cooking on the stove! Less enjoyable!)
Core Recipes:
Cooking Hot Pot
“Hot pot” is less of a complete dish and more of a process of cooking communally with some folks you like. With that in mind, I have less to walk you through, but more to recommend!
First up: Stock up on your supplies! If you're not keen on buying anything specific for this dish, you can make everything on some pots on your stovetop. If you want to invest in two things, I'd recommend a divided pot, and a decent hot plate — with particular attention paid to the hot plate.
Other than that, you'll gather up all the necessary ingredients, which I'd put into a few different categories: Meat, seafood, veggies, starches, and broths.
While you're certainly welcome to make your own broths… I simply couldn't bring myself to handmake two different soups. Instead, I purchased two different soup packages from an Asian supermarket, so I just had to pop ‘em in boiling water, stir, and call it good.
For meats, the key is that you just want everything thinly sliced! I opted for brisket and pork. When you're preparing these in the broth, the ultra-thin slices mean they'll cook up quick, so keep an eye on things!
For seafoods, I grabbed some shrimp and frozen seafood balls, the latter of which I… did not enjoy, largely for the gummy-like texture? (Is this normal? I've never had these before, and it was not pleasant!!! I don't want to try ‘em again if they're not yummy!)
For my veggies, I opted for mini corns (my favorite thing, ever), tofu, enoki mushrooms, and baby bok choy.
And my starches? Some rice vermicelli noodles and some chow mein noodles. Maybe not conventional, but delicious nevertheless!
But definitely take some time to whip up a few different sauces. I kind of overdid it by making five different dips, but I personally found it to be worth it. I already had all the ingredients in the pantry, so it wasn't too much of an ask for me.
I made a light sesame soy sauce (sesame oil, soy sauce, oyster sauce, garlic, spring onion, sesame seeds), chili oil vinegar (chili oil, garlic, black vinegar, oyster sauce, soy sauce, spring onion), honey miso (sesame oil, miso paste, honey, soy sauce, rice vinegar, spring onion, coriander), spicy peanut (peanut butter, spicy bean paste, sesame oil, spring onion, sesame seeds), and sweet & spicy chili sauce (spicy bean paste, sweet chili sauce, onion, garlic, chili oil, and coriander).
The Wine List
If you're going to opt for a good hot pot wine, I'd recommend something with bubbles — and/or something sweet!
I opted for a Renardat-Fâche Cerdon du Bugey, a traditional-style sparkling rosé wine that's pink and bubbly and delicious. It's made of Gamay and Poulsard grapes, and it's so good. It's a fairly sweet batch of bubbly, but that's perfect here.
A lot of Asian spices go really well with a sweeter wine or a bubbly wine. I've recommended something sweet before with these kinds of dishes, and I've also recommended a dryer wine for them.
Pair the two together, and you've got something with a tingly mouthfeel that can cut through everything from your spiciest chili sauces to your creamiest peanut butter dips. Plus, something sweeter has the sugar and flavor to stand up to bold flavors, without being so overpowering that it completely overtakes your dinner.
So, What's The Verdict?
I already briefly touched on my verdict here, but I'll say it again: If you want to make hot pot at home, invest in a nice divided pot and a decent hot plate!
The divided pot is great for any time you want to have two different flavors of soup warming next to each other (or even for filling a soup with different ingredients for two different people). But the hot plate is important.
My husband offered the services of his trusty college hot plate, but it didn't turn out to be quite powerful enough! You want your hot pot soups to be at a nice, vigorous simmer, and we just weren't getting that. And when it comes to cooking meat, I didn't want to fool around!
We ultimately cooked up all our ingredients in the soup on the stove, one at a time. It was definitely tedious and resulted in a slightly less enjoyable experience than if we were cooking together at the table — but it was still tasty! Less hot pot, more hot pot pot pot pot pot pot stacked up on the table.
Otherwise, make sure your ingredients are well-prepared and decent quality, and that you make plenty of dipping sauces! It can be a little annoying to specifically buy ingredients to make small quantities of the exact sauces I made, so instead focus on what you have in the fridge and pantry. And if you don't have anything available at home, I’d recommend investing in soy sauce, oyster sauce, ginger, garlic, and sesame oil as specific ingredients. If you have peanut butter laying around, or honey, or chili oil, or some vinegar — all the better!
Ultimately, I'd consider the ultimate food itself a success, but the process… certainly left something to be desired! But my husband and I enjoyed the activity of cooking together so much that we're going to be investing in a more powerful hot pot, so that we can do this properly at a different date!
Ready… Set… COOK!
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