Tuesday, April 01, 2014

Chongqing Hot Pot? Sign Me Up

Now this might be a reason to take a little trip to Chongqing, China.

Thousands of vats of hot pot seasoning thicken the air around Nie Ganru's home with a miasma of chili as flame-red paste, thick with oil, bakes in the sun. 

Nie lives and effectively breathes hot pot, the spicy cook-it-yourself communal Chinese meal that made his fortune, and has built a pot-shaped six-storey museum dedicated to the dish.
Now his home town, the megalopolis of Chongqing, is seeking national and ultimately global recognition for the food.

"It's numbing, it's hot, it's very flavourful, it has an aroma that hits you in the face, and that's why everybody likes it," says the 70-year-old tycoon, who eats it about every other day.

It looks like Sukiyaki but instead of beef broth you cook the food in a mixture of hot peppers and stuff. You then dip chicken and beef into the boiling red mixture and you get some heat and hopefully some flavor mixed in. The broth does like quite evil if you aren't into hot foods though. I am willing to try it as long as there is quite a bit of water or milky stuff provided.

 

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