Hot pot at home, with a split pot

The split pot: one table, two heats

Hot pot, 火锅 (huǒguō, “fire pot”), is a pot of broth kept at a boil on the table while everyone cooks raw meat, seafood, tofu and vegetables in it and dips each bite into their own sauce. The split pot, 鸳鸯锅, has a divider down the middle. China Sichuan Food describes the two usual broths as a spicy mala broth, 红汤 (hóngtāng, “red soup”), and a mild clear broth, 清汤 (qīngtāng), and a split pot lets one table have both.

That makes the split pot the every-heat vessel:

• The gentle side is 不辣 (bù là, no heat) for everyone. Anything can be cooked in it, and anyone who wants no heat can eat from it.
• The mala side is base-bound. Its heat is cooked into the store-bought base, so it has a floor you can’t lower at the table. The heat word on the packet tells you roughly where that floor sits.
• The sauces finish each bite. A gentle-side bite dipped in a sesame dip stays 不辣; the same bite in a chili dip climbs the ladder. How the heat ladder works.

First Trip China’s advice to newcomers in Chongqing is the same: order the split pot, and treat the clear side as your relief valve.

What you need

If you use a butane burner

Tabletop butane stoves, the kind with a gas canister lying in a compartment beside the burner, are common for hot pot. Read your stove’s own label first. Some models sold in the US are certified only for outdoor use, or for restaurants under a ventilation hood: one manufacturer’s manual says never to use its stove in an enclosed space such as a home, because it can produce carbon monoxide. CDC advises never using a portable gas camp stove indoors. Hong Kong’s and Singapore’s safety agencies, where tabletop cassette cookers are widespread, allow them with adequate ventilation. The sources disagree, so this page takes the cautious side: indoors, use induction.

Wherever a butane stove is used, these rules come from manufacturers and consumer-safety agencies, and most trace back to one danger: heat reaching the canister until it vents or bursts.

The mala side: how to read a base packet

The mala side starts from a store-bought hot pot base, 火锅底料 (huǒguō dǐliào): a block or pouch of fat, chili, Sichuan pepper, bean paste and spices that melts into water or stock. Follow the packet for how much water to use. This page doesn’t give a broth recipe; the gentle side is plain stock or a mild store-bought clear base.

What goes in the pot, and for how long

Keep a rolling boil; cook meat and seafood through. Add food only when the broth is boiling. Don’t crowd the pot, because a pile of cold food drops the temperature. After raw meat goes in, The Woks of Life lets the broth boil for at least 30 seconds to 1 minute before anything else comes out. Whenever you top the pot up with water or stock, wait for it to boil again.

These times are starting points from published hot pot guides and Hong Kong’s Centre for Food Safety, for thin slices and small pieces in broth that is already at a rolling boil. Thicker pieces take longer. Go by the “done when” column.

Food safety at the table

Hot pot puts raw food and cooked food on the same table for an hour or more, so the usual kitchen rules matter more than usual.

• Separate raw and cooked. Hong Kong’s Centre for Food Safety advises separate sets of chopsticks and utensils, with different appearances, for raw and cooked food, and keeping raw and cooked food apart on the table. CDC says to keep raw meat, poultry and seafood on their own plate or board.
• Keep raw food cold until it goes in. Store raw meat and seafood in the fridge, at 40°F (4°C) or below, and bring it out in rounds rather than all at once. Perishable food shouldn’t sit out for more than 2 hours, or 1 hour above 90°F. Thaw frozen slices in the fridge, not on the counter.
• Cook only in boiling broth, and cook meat and seafood through, as in the table above. Poultry to 165°F; ground meat, as in homemade meatballs, to 160°F.
• Sauces don’t make undercooked food safe. The Centre for Food Safety notes that condiments such as soy sauce, vinegar and chili can’t kill bacteria or parasites.
• Skip the raw-egg dip unless the eggs are pasteurised. The Centre for Food Safety advises against eating cooked food mixed with unpasteurised raw egg.

The sauce bar, from 不辣 to 特辣

Sauces are where each person sets their own heat. Hot pot tables in China use a few families of dip. The northern table favours sesame paste, 麻酱 (májiàng), with lamb. Chongqing and Chengdu favour an oil dish, 油碟 (yóudié), of sesame oil and crushed garlic, and a dry chili dip, 干碟 (gāndié), for the mala side. Cantonese hot pot leans on sha cha sauce.

The Gentle Hearth sauce bar will set six sauces along the heat ladder, from a 不辣 sesame dip to a 特辣 chili dish. Full recipes publish after our test night, once they have been cooked and logged. Until then, the zero-prep tray works here too: the chili oil or crisp you already own, ground roasted huajiao, black vinegar and scallion. How to thin sesame paste for a dip.

待试 Not yet cooked: the sauce bar and the gentle broth are on the kitchen log’s list. See the kitchen log.

Leftovers

• Refrigerate promptly, within 2 hours of the meal, in shallow covered containers so the broth cools quickly. Don’t leave the pot on the burner overnight.
• Use within 3 to 4 days, or freeze.
• Bring it back to a boil before eating. Reheat broth and sauces to a rolling boil, and other leftovers to 165°F.
• Leftover raw ingredients that sat out on the table past the 2-hour mark go in the bin, not back in the fridge.
• An opened base packet: follow its label.

Plan the night on paper

Hot Pot at Home, the Split-Pot Planner, is a printable for planning a hot pot night. It goes on sale once our test night has been cooked and logged.

$16 Not on sale yet: see what it's waiting on