Mushroom Hot Pot

I had ordered this cookbook from the library quite a while ago, and actually it was the reason for my visit to T&T because there were some specific ingredients i needed for the meal. I had eaten hot pot before and really liked the idea of it, especially in the winter. It is also a pretty healthy dish. I didn't actually have a hot pot, but i had recently purchased a small casserole dish from Winners as a Valentine's day present to myself, and thought it would do quite nicely. (yeah i'm cool).

One of the things i didn't find on my first trip to T&T was dashi - the broth that was the basis of the hot pot. You could make it yourself, but i can't really be bothered by making stock, and the book said that Japanese grocery stores have a more instant version in a sort of tea bag format. I went back to T&T, and scoured the store. I really enjoy the variety there, but i don't find the staff that helpful. Finally i saw a display all about hot pot ingredients!!! (leftover from chinese new year). There were two types of "hot pot soup base" one plain, one hot. Of course i picked the hot.

I had to make the hot pot in a regular pot with a lid (one day i'll get a dutch oven) and followed the ingredients in the order they suggested. Cabbage and tofu first, add broth and bring to a boil, simmer for five minutes, add mushrooms, cover and simmer for another five, then add spinach and cook for another minute. The problem came when i opened up the broth container - it wasn't broth, just a whole lot of those damn peppers and some oil! I added the sake and miron as directed, them some water because i obviously didn't have enough broth and hoped for the best.

If i thought that the miso veggie dish was hot i was about to learn what scortching was. DAMN. I have no idea how many people this broth was for - maybe ten, because this was beyond spicy!!! But at the same time it was good. I tried and tried, watered it down, but i really couldn't eat it.

This weekend i'm going to head down to Sanko on Queen west and see if i can find the broth that was intended for the dish. There are a whole lot of recipes i want to make out of the cookbook, and i'm realizing how important broth is to hot pot!

Above:

Very hot mushroom hot pot
My Valentine's gift
Ingredients

Post Script

So i only used one of the packages of chilis, and decided i would open the other one to take a couple pics of it for the blog - it turns out the second pack wasn't more chilis but the stock. I guess i should have opened them both!!!!