Food

For Newcomers to Sichuan Hot Pot, a Gateway at Da Long Yi


You can, if you like, follow the custom of Chengdu or Chongqing by focusing on ingredients that are prized more for feel than flavor. The duck intestines, for instance, which quickly contract in the hot broth and come out about 30 seconds later with the texture of barely cooked squid. Or the pale ivory sheets of flattened artery, which after cooking about twice as long have a long-lasting chew that reminds me of geoduck.

On the other hand, more flavorful ingredients, once they’ve cooked for a few minutes, can help punch up the broths, which aren’t quite as deep or complex as they are at some other hot pot providers. This does not apply to the lengths of corn on the cob, which don’t taste like anything to begin with. And I would avoid the “vegetable platter,” which was more like a lettuce platter. But it is useful to keep in mind that if you toss sliced king oyster mushrooms, or crown daisy greens, or bands of kelp tied into knots, or even the Hershey’s Kiss-shaped fish balls with gooey orange roe inside, into the soup and forget about them for a while, both the ingredients and the soup will rise to the occasion.

Some ingredients, though, you hold in your chopsticks, watching for 30 seconds or a minute until you can see they’re ready. The marble tiles of Wagyu rib are in this category, and the New Zealand lamb shaved as thin as prosciutto, and the Kurobuta pork belly from Japan. The whole prawns on wooden skewers will be tender and running with juices in just over a minute. The sweet, small flounder fillets might need twice that.

Even if you are careful to pull these bites out in the bubbling center of the pot, away from the oil, the chiles and Sichuan peppercorns will catch up with you sooner or later. They build up on your tongue, they slowly infiltrate your dipping sauce, and the mala tingle will take over. There is no fighting it at that point, of course, though a bowl of white rice is a good investment in the future.

And when conversation at the table has stopped completely, when the water you keep pouring into sadistically small cups won’t help any more, there is one thing that will: fresh watermelon juice, sold by the carafe.

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