Szechuan hot pot—At first, it sounds like a good idea. Later, when your bowels feel like white-hot fire you begin to wonder if Szechuan chilis were bred for state-sponsored torture. Eventually the pain subsides and the fun of dipping things into a pot with your friends outweighs self-preservation, so you return for more.
Business-wise, there are some concerns with hot pot that makes the litigation fearing-crowd want to run the other way. Running an eatery is already hard enough and despite popular belief, increased spiciness does not prevent food-born illness.
Besides people burning themselves, you’ll have the usual problems with uncooked meats—normally handled with care behind the scenes. Now they’re presented to the customer alongside other raw ingredients, utensils will get cross-contaminated and you’ll be responsible, even if the germs come in on the customer’s own hands. I’m getting that white-hot fire just thinking about it.
Maybe this all goes away with an obligatory waiver before seating. Some pre-meal education would go a long way and covert, temperature readings every time staff passes by might be in order.
Are you still into this? If so, then say a prayer to the god of good gut-health and start working on a soup base.
Like all good things, the secret is quality and simplicity. We can break this down into two parts, first manage the big three—salt, fat and acid and then work build the flavor.
In the end you want the base to be mostly salt-free for storage purposes. It doesn’t help with freezing after you portion it out. For consistency, you should add salt to taste when you prepare the soup for service. While you’re in development you’ll need to keep some handy for tasting, so use whatever you’re going to put in the final presentation. Soy sauce is common, but any sea salt will work as long as it doesn’t add an undesirable flavor (see note 1).
Your choice in fat will affect flavor as well as business concerns. Most of it should come from a neutral vegetable oil. Common examples include sunflower, canola or soybean oil. From there you can chose to add in tallow or schmaltz. These come with flavor so if you skip them and stay neutral, then you’ll be left with a more universal hot pot base—you can always add beef or chicken flavor with stock when it’s soup time.
Next is acid. Lemon is not an authentic solution and lime gives you more of a south-east asian vibe that’s not totally right for Szechuan. Rice vinegar is widely available but black vinegar is worth the time it takes to source (note 2).
With those choices made, it’s time for flavor. There are more fermented bean pastes out there than people with an opinion on them, so explore and pick something you like. If you’re going to this much effort to make your own signature hot pot base then you shouldn’t rely on the bean paste for spicy flavor (note 4).
Source Szechuan peppercorns and chinese chilis that are up to your standards—the best you can afford. Some other authentic spices include garlic, ginger, cloves, onion and even goji berry. This is where your experience or self-expression can shine.
Do as is done to make all soup bases and when the time comes, make sure your ass is covered legally for when the customers hurt themselves.
- Let them get their daily iodine supplement somewhere else, its flavor cuts right through a good soup broth—my opinion.
- Despite what you may have heard elsewhere, balsamic is not a substitute for black vinegar.
- If you need a preservative, sulfite is commonly used, but if your practice is on that level maybe you should up your game and look into rotations.
- If you need more sweetness after the bean paste it might be that haven’t used enough, if you can’t and you’ve exhausted other types of bean paste, look into chinese brown sugar. It comes from sugarcane and adds a caramel flavor.
- Toast your spices, use the best water available, (read—flavor free), and spend the time concentrating the flavors.
Hot Pot Soup Base, Szechuan Province
