I love the ceremony of eating a hotpot as a shared meal, but there’s no reason this can’t be scaled down to a nourishing meal for one. Here, we’re dunking an array of quick-cooking ingredients into a simmering broth, which becomes infused with all their delicious flavours. I love to eat this dish with a dipping sauce of sliced red chillies in soy sauce.

Notes

“Hotpot-style” refers to the often communal style of dining in which an array of fresh, quick-cooking ingredients is dipped into a simmering broth to cook, one piece at a time. As each delicious morsel is cooked and fished out with chopsticks to enjoy, the broth becomes imbued with the essence of all the individual ingredients – meat, seafood and vegetables – resulting in a richly flavoured and delicious soup.

A camping stove set in the middle of the dining table is ideal, but a good Dutch oven or cast-iron pot could work, too, brought to the boil with the ingredients then transferred to the table so everyone can search for the delights within. You may need to pop it back on the stove from time to time to bring it back to a boil.

You can use any ingredient you like, as long as it cooks quickly. Firmer vegetables such as carrot, daikon, or sweet potato need to be sliced thinly, as do proteins. Frozen meat sliced for a hotpot is available at select butchers and Asian grocers, and seafood such as prawns, pipis or sliced white fish also make wonderful additions.