Sichuan Hot Pot

Sichuan hot pot — huoguo, fire pot — is a communal cooking method and social eating format that has become the most popular restaurant dining occasion across China and, increasingly, a significant presence in Chinese restaurants internationally. It is not a single dish but a meal structure: a pot of heavily seasoned broth is set in the centre of the table over a burner, and diners cook raw ingredients in the broth at their own pace over the course of one to three hours.

The defining element is the mala broth. Mala Sichuan hot pot broth begins with beef tallow, melted until liquid and extremely hot, into which an enormous quantity of dried chillies (typically whole, of multiple varieties) and Sichuan peppercorn is added and cooked briefly before doubanjiang — Pixian fermented broad-bean and chilli paste — is fried in until the fat turns deeply red. Ginger, garlic, rock sugar, and various spices follow. The result is a dense, oily, intensely red broth that produces genuine mala — the combined effect of capsaicin heat from the chillies and hydroxy-alpha-sanshool numbing from the peppercorn.

Chongqing-style hot pot tends to be heavier in beef tallow and stronger in flavour than the Chengdu version, which may be somewhat more balanced. Neither version is mild; the standard division for mixed-tolerance groups is the yuanyang (mandarin-duck) pot — a pot divided by a metal partition, with mala broth on one side and a clear chicken or bone broth on the other.

Ingredients cooked in the pot are ordered from a menu and typically include: thinly sliced lamb and beef, tripe and other offal, fish balls, tofu in various preparations (silken, fried, skin), lotus root, potato slices, enoki and king oyster mushrooms, leafy greens, duck intestine, and whatever else the kitchen offers. Each cooked piece is dipped before eating in a personal dipping sauce assembled from a condiment bar; sesame paste, garlic paste, sesame oil, and chopped coriander are standard components.

The sesame dipping sauce is important: it cools each piece and provides a contrasting creaminess that makes sustained eating of the fiery broth manageable.