Saturday, January 24, 2009

Japanese Hot Pot Party!






Before I attended this feast I was ignorant to the fact that Japanese Hot Pot and Shabu Shabu are two separate things. Both involve cooking at the table, but in Japanese Hot Pot everything is put in at the same time, whereas with Shabu Shabu, the meat is put in at various times throughout the meal. The thinly sliced meats make a specific "swishy" sound which is where the name comes from. Ponzu sauce is an integral component of this meal as it lends a lot of flavor to the meat -- in this case it was halibut and chicken meatballs. Towards the end of the soup-fest, we added udon noodles. Yum!

Our gracious hosts had us over in January, at a time in Boston when hot soup is very much appreciated! They had a very fancy hot pot apparatus which they brought with them from Japan when they moved over here.



There were several tasty appetizers - an asparagus dish and a tasty Japanese fried chicken that Japanese boys have a particular liking for. My friend Mayumi (the chef), claims this is very easy to make and that her husband can even make it, so has challenged the other boys to also make it for themselves. That sounds like a Japanese fried chicken throwdown!




Some happy hot pot participants!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

You are a great photographer. Everything looks very yummy! Next time, let's try to cook "shabu shabu" or "sukiyaki"!!!

Jenny T. said...

Well the reason it looks so yummy is that the chef is so talented! I'm always up for trying to cook new things. Thanks!