Hot Pot Ingredient In Summer

Summer is characterized by high temperature, humid air. People in this environment tend to sweat tremendously, lack water and electrolyte, which leads to bad appetite. Therefore it is necessary to supplement water, salt, potassium, calcium, electrolyte, vitamin B/C, in summer diet. That is to say, hot pot food is better to choose vegetable, tofu, egg, meat, fish, chicken, duck, eggplant, cucumber, bitter gourd, and wax gourd. Because these food help stimulate appetite, nourish stomach, improve digestion.  
What’s more, they provide rich amino acid, vitamin, and other nutritious elements, refresh one’s mind, relieve summer heat and exhaustion. Green bean or lotus leaf gruel is such a good choice to eat after hot pot to repeal summer heat. Or a cool drink after a break for hot pot eating decreases the possibility of diarrhea. Summer is a season easy to breed bacteria, so garlic and vinegar should be added to hot pot to keep health.

Hot Pot Ingredient In Spring

In spring, climate gets warmer, everything revived, internal environment of human body has switched from winter to spring, so diet should be arranged to help body adjust to season change. And ingredients, should be picked to gently supplement Yang, such as Chinese-date, pork, beef, .meat, fish, chicken, bean product, green onion and garlic. People could also buy hot pot food according to Chinese ancient pharmacist Sun Siyi’s traditional taste theory that diet in sweet and sour taste helps nourish spleen in spring.
Climate changes a lot in spring. Hence people can add ginger to hot pot when it is cold, and sugarcane when warm. And carrots need to be added to repeal inner heat. In this way, disease from climate change can be prevented. Spring is a good time for ladies to beautify themselves. So for those women who love eating hot pot, they might as well add chrysanthemum, trotters, cucumber, hogskin.

Hot Pot food in Season Variation

Hot pot is rich in nutrition, for its foods are various. Because nutrition in hot pot food will leave in hot pot soup, making hot pot a delicious and healthy dish, with its unique style. Ingredient food is different in flavor and nature, which have different effect in human body. Physical function changes with seasonal change in temperature.  
To bring hot pot into health care effect, hot pot food should be chosen according to seasonal change to meet body’s requirement. It will do harm to human’s body to use same food in all four seasons.

Several Points to Notice for Hot Pot Soup Base

Soup base brings various condiments completely into effect through heating. To make quality soup base with five flavors, one should take great advantage of lip solubility and water solubility of condiment after heated. It requires correct mastery of heating, food adding order, and cooking time.
And then is about five flavors interacting in appropriate proportion. A reasonable combination of different condiments brings out the hot pot soup base. A delicate relation lies in the principle of five flavors interacting in appropriate proportion that one of the five flavor exceeding will take away the others. So it is critical to control the amount of each flavor.
In hot pot soup base, freshness and salt are dominate, and sweetness is just to bring out the salty taste and last the mellow flavor. It is said that numbness and spiciness should be equal in hot pot, but actually a bit more numbness than spiciness make hot pot more delicious.
Soup base is fundamentally set if the mastery of condiment taste is right. Other things to do is to repeal odd smell and add fragrance and not to exaggerate freshness.

Is It Reasonable for Pregnant Women to Eat Hot Pot?

Women during pregnancy should not eat stimulated food, not too much even for normal people. Because excess hot pot food case discomfort to the stomach, harmful for the body.
It the position is too far away from the pot and food, pregnant women should avoid reaching them in case of back pain. So it is better to ask husbands or others for help.
Prepare one more pair of chopsticks to prevent contamination
Pregnant women should avoid using one pair of chopsticks to pick raw food and eating which can easily cause diarrhea or other desease.
DIY hot pot is the most sanitary
If pregnant women really feel like eating hot pot, it is better to make at home by themselves or family. Prepare soup base and ingredient in person, for sanitary food is the most important. Remember, wherever you eat hot pot, at home or restaurant, boil the food until it is completely done.
Decrease the amount ones eat
Women during pregnancy tend to vomit and regurgitate, which leads to poor digestion. So when eating, they should keep it slow and decrease the amount they eat in order not to feeling bad.
What’s more, food should be eaten in order. Before eating hot pot, it is healthier to drink half a glass of fresh juice, and then start to eat vegetable, and meat. Health diet can be achieved in this way by makinf good use of nutrition and releasing the burden of appetite.

Chrysanthemum Hot Pot

Chrysanthemum hot pot prevailed in late Qing dynasty in Jiangzhe district. It had a long history of nearly 100 years after spread to Kaifeng, thanks to the rich natural resource of chrysanthemum there. Chrysanthemum hot pot is mainly made by fresh fish. Pour into chicken soup first, and add the white chrysanthemum, cleaned and stripped. After fragrance of the chrysanthemum penetrated, put meat and chicken to boil. And then eat them with sauce.
This hot pot smells so sweet and is regarded as superior hot pot for family with its unique flavor.
Ingredient: 150g shrimp, 150g beef fillet, 150g pork fillet, 150g chicken, 20g white chrysanthemum, 60g spinach,30g peanuts, 4g salt, 6ml rice wine, (small amout)pepper power, green onion, pepper oil, vegetable oil, 1500g chicken soup
Cooking way:
1.       Place beef, shrimp, pork, and chicken respectively on each dish, peanuts, oil on their own dish
2.       Pour chicken soup into the pot after seasoning, and with other meat prepared, put them all at table. When the pot boiling, add chrysanthemum.
3.       User could boil any meat they want and eat with condiment.
Characteristic:
Moderate in freshness and salt, spicy but delicious soup. Those with high blood pressure, coronary heart disease, diabetes or obesity should avoid eating too much. While those have osteoporosis, rickets and pregnant women could gain benefit from it.

Three Types of Dian Style Hot Pot

Dian style hot pot may seem unfamiliar to many people. Dian refer to area in the east of Yunnan province.
Wild fungus hot pot is the most famous type of Dian style hot pot. Yunnan’s complicate terrain, various forests, and special climate provide it with rich resource of edible wild fungus. Those wild funguses, like bolete, chanterelle, mushroom, are used in soup base or used as ingredient to eat after boiling in hot pot. And condiment sauce also could be made from wild fungus to adjust the flavor of the boiled food.
Gastrodia ham chicken is another kind of Yunnan hot pot. As its name implied, the main ingredients are gastrodia, ham, and chicken. Put all these food to pot with water and ginger to cook for about 1hour over gentle heat. It also belongs to herb hot pot, which is healthy and nutritious. So it is quite popular with Chinese people.
Hu la Yu (in Chinese) is a traditional famous Chuan dish in China, pleasant in taste, smell and appearance.  As its Chinese name implied, it is a spicy fish dish but containing freshness. Fish selected in the dish should be with less bone as possible, such as grass crap, weever and mandarin fish. When seasoning the fish, it is a good idea to pour white egg on it. And before cooking, roll the fish in the 40℃ oil for 30 seconds.  

What Do You Know About Beijing Hot Pot?

Hot pot is one of the winter features in northern China. The materials used for pot usually are copper, aluminum, and ceramic. And the ingredients include mutton, beef, fish, shrimp, soy products, vegetables and dumpling. Some foreigners take it as Mongolia hot pot, for it may relevant to Mongolian mutton shabu. 

Before eating, it is better to pour boiled water into the pot, and fill the stove roll with lighted charcoal. Add meat into the pot when water is boiling, and master the time it takes to cook, generally, about a few seconds. And eat the boiled food with the sauce. That is what we called eating hot pot.

Take mutton shabu shabu as an example. Only 6-7 kg meat of a sheep weighted 20 kg can be used for mutton hot pot. And the quality is only guaranteed when over 120 slices was cut per kilogram mutton with the thickness of 0.1 mm for each. The mutton was cut so thinly that it can be done in boiling water within few seconds and fresh and delicious in taste. Last but not least, elaborate condiment must be prepared for hot pot, which could make it more delicious and interesting. Condiments are often mix with spicy sauce, soy sauce, sesame oil, caraway, fermented bean curd, sweet garlic sauce and shrimp paste. 

The Most Common Edible Oil Used in Hot Pot

Beef tallow: is an indispensible grease for traditional hot pot, made of melt cow fat. It plays an important role in bringing lipidation into effect under heated, and adding flavor and fragrance to hot pot. Tallow floating on the surface of the soup can maintain hot pot’s temperature and thickness, allowing the boiled food to be fragrant and tasty with luster. Tallow’s strong aroma keeps hot pot pleasant in flavor, which for certain need to adjust according to customers’ taste.

Lard oil: is a main ingredient for light soup hot pot because it can be melt in hot pot to blend flavor, remove odor and enhance fragrance. Adding appropriate lard oil also could remove odor of entrails and aquatic product.

Chicken oil: is a new and upscale grease used in hot pot with rich nutrition and fresh flavor. The way to make chicken oil for light soup hot pot is to cook with ginger slice or steam with ginger and green onion. The former is great in taste but worse in color, while the latter is better but worse in flavor. The key to make it smell good is to deep fry the ginger and onion when the oil is about to be done, and take away the remains.  

Rapeseed oil: is extracted from rapeseed, and mainly used to make condiment in Chongqing hot pot. Condiment with rapeseed brings out the original flavor of food.

Sesame oil: its usage is the same as that of rapeseed oil. Adding it to all kinds of condiment can enhance aroma and repeal internal heat.

Salad oil: is an extraction from rapeseed oil or other grease but getting rid of their color. It is mainly used to make hot pot ingredient and condiment. 

In conclusion, there are 4 common types of edible oil for hot pot: beef tallow, lard oil, rapeseed oil and sesame oil. Beef tallow enhances hot pot flavor, maintains soup temperature, brightens luster. Lard oil brings out original taste and saps the ingredient of odors. Rapeseed oil and sesame oil are for condiment making. What’s more, those also used for condiment are pepper oil, oyster sauce, and chicken oil, allowing hot pot to be more pleased in taste.