A celebratory fire-pot dinner is an adventure in tint, texture and taste. Think of it as an Asian version of fondue–and the perfect choice for the Chinese New Year, which begins Monday.
Guests sit around an urn of fragrant, steaming broth. Each person selects from a variety of sliced vegetables and meats, then submerges the mix in the hot liquid via long-handled brass baskets.
While the food cooks, each diner prepares a dipping sauce from a dozen or so ingredients, ranging from the bland to the overwhelmingly pungent.
Fire pots originated with Mongolian nomads, says Vivian Kuo Macht, a chef/instructor at College of Du Page and Kendall College, who recently demonstrated a traditional fire-pot dinner for a few American guests. Not only is the fire-pot meal appropriate for ushering in a new year, but it can bring together people unfamiliar with traditional Chinese cooking and each other.
She began by showing off her handcrafted Chinese fire pot, a replica of a family vessel that resides with relatives in Taiwan.
Her copper fire pot, which she keeps as an artifact and seldom uses, combines a charcoal stove and cooking pan made of tinned copper. It consists of a foot-high central cone in which the fire is built. A circular, troughlike cooking basin that looks like an angel-food cake pan or gelatin mold slides down over the hot cone. Controlled by a damper on the chimney, the device keeps the broth simmering with just a small fire of charcoal or wood chips, which made it useful in a country where fuel was scarce.
So important was the fire pot and its attendant ritual in the Kuo family that when Macht’s father, a doctor, fled mainland China, he left behind his deeds and legal papers but took the family fire pot.
“Money and property can be replaced,” he told his children, “but this is our family tradition, handed down from our great-grandparents.” Before Macht moved to the States, she and her siblings had copies made.
Macht hauls out her copper fire pot to as a family heirloom and symbol when preparing the dinner, but uses an electric wok for actually simmering the broth. An electric skillet or even a chafing dish with a large can of Sterno also serve the purpose, especially when the broth is heated on the stove ahead of time.
Her husband George Macht, coordinator of the hospitality culinary arts program at College of Du Page, says that for the early Mongolians, food was simple and ingredients few, mostly lamb and a few vegetables. Other Chinese improved on the technique, adding many kinds of meats, seafood, vegetables and sauces.
“What you see now is upscale fire pot (dining),” he says. “It actually can be made with a very wide range of ingredients.”
As practiced in northern China provinces, fire-pot cooking uses only a rich broth–no oil–so the meal is very low in fat and, because of the variety of ingredients, very nourishing, especially in the eyes of today’s nutritionists.
As with many Chinese meals, most of the labor comes ahead of time in preparing ingredients. Macht set an impressive table: more than two dozen plates and bowls of common and exotic, sliced and chopped foods.
For meats she sliced thin strips of beef, pork, veal and chicken. There were cubes of firm tofu, butterflied shrimp, sections of squid, slivers of salmon, rounds of sea cucumber and surimi fish balls. Among the vegetables were mushrooms, tree fungus, turnips, seaweed, napa cabbage, spinach leaves and two kinds of pickled cabbage.
The liquid itself is chicken based: Macht made hers from whole chickens the day before, but says low-fat canned broth can be used.
But those ingredients are only half the story. A fire pot so prepared would be nutritious. But the food would be insipid without the sauces to catapult the dish into the new year.
“Each diner must be responsible for making his own sauce and flavorings,” Macht says. “I suggest you start with some soy sauce in the bowl, then add a little garlic and green onion, fresh ginger and hot Szechwan pepper oil.”
There were many other tastes to choose from: rice vinegar, Chinese wine, fish sauce, fermented tofu (fuyu), chili sauce, peanut sauce, Chinese barbecue sauce, oyster sauce, preserved chives and preserved cilantro.
Macht also put out as relishes sliced shiitake mushrooms, smoked oysters, dried scallops and dried squid.
The unfamiliarity of the ingredients puts off some Americans trying the fire pot for the first time. “Many people try it, but are afraid to make sauces,” Macht says. “They just put in a little soy or onion. But I try to show them to take a little taste of garlic and ginger. And if they like it, then I say try some fuyu,” which is very strong by itself.
“If there is something you do not like, you can try again with a fresh bowl,” she says.
Just before the cooking started, Macht enhanced the broth with a handful of napa cabbage.
Diners jockeyed for space, placing a basket of squid or beef in the pot to simmer while concocting a sauce. The pieces were small and quickly eaten. The taste of the sauce changed with the type of ingredients and with the addition of other flavors. It was a complicated repast, sometimes chaotic, sometimes symphonic.
All the while the caldron perked with added flavors from the cooking food and the handfuls of noodles and dollops of sauces that Macht dropped in periodically.
Just as guests began to tire of cooking and as the number of sliced meats dwindled, Macht brought out bowls. The broth–enhanced by a wealth of new tastes–had become soup.
“Nothing is wasted,” Macht said as diners shoveled hot noodles into their mouths with chopsticks and sipped the fragrant liquid.
As a finale, Macht produced a huge mound of eight-treasure rice pudding, a dessert reserved for special occasions. The pudding was replete with raisins, dates and lotus seeds and accompanied with Chinese rice-paper poppers: Bang! Pow! Pop!
Happy New Year!
EIGHT-TREASURE RICE PUDDING
Preparation time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 2 1/4 hours
Yield: 6 to 8 servings
This Chinese pudding is served for special occasions. The unfamiliar ingredients can be purchased at a Chinese or Asian grocery. You can substitute dried fruit of your choice.
1 1/2 cups glutinous rice (sweet rice)
2 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
4 pieces squash candy or candied cherries
1/4 cup candied orange peel
20 candied lotus seeds
10 red dates
20 golden raisins
1/2 cup sweet red bean paste
Sauce:
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon cold water
3 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon cornstarch
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1. Rinse rice until water runs clear. Place rice in deep pot and add 1 1/2 cups cold water. Heat to a boil over high heat and cook until water is almost absorbed, about 3 minutes. Reduce heat to very low. Cover pot with lid and cook slowly until rice is tender, about 10 minutes. Remove rice to bowl and add the 2 tablespoons of sugar and 2 tablespoons of the butter. Mix well.
2. Heat oven to 400 degrees. Cut squash candy and orange peel into small pieces. Brush bottom of a 6-inch round mold with remaining 1 tablespoon butter. Lay all ingredients except rice and bean paste in rows or some other design in mold.
3. Place 2/3 of rice in bowl, carefully covering the fruits and nuts. Put sweet red bean paste in center, then cover paste with remaining rice and flatten the surface. Wrap bowl tightly in two layers of aluminum foil, place in large roasting pan and fill with water up the sides of bowl mold to within about 1 inch of the top. Place in oven and bake at least 2 hours. Alternatively the pudding may be cooked in a Chinese steamer. Unmold onto a platter.
4. For sauce, boil 1 cup of the water in a small pan. Add 3 tablespoons sugar and cook to dissolve sugar and make a thin syrup. Dissolve cornstarch in remaining 1 tablespoon cold water; stir into syrup. Cook and stir until smooth and slightly thickened. Stir in lemon juice; remove from heat. Serve wedges of the warm pudding with warm sauce ladled over.
Nutrition information per serving:
Calories……….390 Fat……………6 g Cholesterol………15 mg
Sodium………345 mg Carbohydrates….80 g Protein……………6 g
