Sweet & Sour Seafood Hot Pot

Ingredients:

1 lb clam
1 lb tiger prawn (or big tiger prawn, white gulf prawn...)
1 lb white fish fillet (halibut, cod... or combined)
1 bundle Enoki mushroom
0.5 lb fresh calamari
1 bundle on-choy (or yu-choy, cai-choy, bok-choy...)
0.5 lb rice vermicelli (or mung-bean or egg noodle)


For the broth: 

8 cups water
1 cup dried shrimp
0.5 lb seawater fish bone (can be substituted by pork bone)
1/2 cup coconut milk
1 tablespoon tamarind concentrate or tamarind paste
2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1.5 tablespoon sugar
2 lemon-grass stalks
2 teaspoon paprika (less if you can't eat hot)
1 teaspoon anato seed (for coloring)
2 tablespoon fish sauce
A little bit salt (about 1 teaspoon)
1 tablespoon chopped dill weed
1 tablespoon chopped green onion
1 tablespoon chopped cilantro


For dipping:

4 tablespoon good fish sauce
1 Fresno chili pepper


Direction

In a pot, heat 1 tablespoon vegetable oil and saute briefly minced garlic, then add in dried shrimp and fish bone and saute on medium heat for about 3 minutes. Add in water and salt then cook on low heat. 

If using pork bone, bring to boil about 1 quart water in a separate pot and then add in pork bone. Bring to boil again, turn off the oven then transfer pork bone to the dried shrimp pot.


Bring the pot to boil then simmer for about 1 hour. Skim any fat or sediment on the broth surface.

Meanwhile, prepare vegetable and the seafood. Wash the clam thoroughly. Wash the prawn in cold water mixed with a little bit salt, then pat dry on paper towel and reserve. Cut the fish fillet into bite-size pieces. Wash and drain the calamari then chop into rings (if you can't find good calamari, it's okay to just skip it. I've not found calamari in Seattle which is as great as in Vietnam, so my hot-pot usually doesn't contain it).

Discard any wilted leaf and tough stems from the on-choy. You can substitute on-choy with other vegetable which should work okay, but on-choy is the best for seafood hot-pots. Fill the sink with cool water then soak the vegetable. Drain the sink and do it again for 2-3 times to make sure on-choy is thoroughly washed.

Boil the rice vermicelli according to package instruction. If using mung-bean noodle, soak it in warm water for 20-30 minutes then let drain on a colander. If using egg noodle, just serve it. 

Place the on-choy and seafood on a serving platter and noodle on a smaller separate bowl or plate. 

About 25 minutes before serving, rinse lemongrass, discard hard roots and green part and outer layer. Use a meat tenderizer to tenderize the lemongrass and to release more flavor. Add into the broth pot.

5-10 minutes before serving, add into the broth: sugar, fish sauce, coconut milk.

In a very small pan, heat up a little bit additional oil (just about 1/2 tablespoon) and saute anato seed and paprika very quickly to release the color. Add this mixture into the broth.

Rinse the chili pepper, discard stem then chop finely. 

Divide dipping fish sauce into 2 individual dipping bowls (if serving bigger party, use 2 tablespoon fish sauce/person). Add in chopped chili pepper. No need to mix fish sauce with any other spices. 

Almost done! Now the broth must be ready. Strain all the bone, dried shrimp and anato seed in the broth. Transfer the broth to a hot-pot pan.

Bring everything to the table. Turn on the hot-pot pan. Let the broth boil again then cook the seafood and vegetable on the table and enjoy:) 

Hot-pot is popular everywhere in Vietnam. This is definitely not a traditional dish, but it has been so popular thanks for its convenience and fun. Unlike other dinner dishes in which the hosts are more or less "slaving" in the kitchen to please the guests, hot-pot is a lot simpler, easier to prepare and has everything needed for a balance meal: vegetable, meat, carbohydrate (from noodle), all in one. Another goodness about hot-pot is all the ingredients are raw, spice-free and will be cooked on the table, therefore people can taste the fresh flavor of the ingredients. Then, after all the meat, seafood and vegetable are cooked in the broth, and you use that broth for the noodle, that's gonna be the best noodle you've ever had.

The fun thing about hot-pot is everybody cooks for himself since everyone picks out whatever piece of meat or vegetable he likes and cooks it on the table. Then, the dinner can last forever, still taste hot and fresh as you just keep cooking, serving yourself then begin another round and another round (until ingredients run out or you're pigged out). 

My family always does hot-pot for Tet (the Vietnamese version of Chinese new year). Gathering around a smoking hot-pot with couple cups of wine with friends and family is simply attractive enough to make everyone want to go home. You can find hot-pot in every restaurants, even there're streets where all they sell is hot-pot. If you're in Hanoi in the winter time, you'll find a whole Truc Bach street is jammed with people sitting around on the pavement with a hot-pot at the centerpiece. Hot-pot taste differs from areas in Vietnam: the Southern hot-pot has more sweet and sour flavor in the broth, the Central hot-pot is totally spicy while the Northern hot-pots is less sweet, less spicy and has more distinctive recipes lnowhere else has like: dog hot-pot (Me Tri village, suburban Hanoi ), intestine hot-pot (Phung Hung street, Hanoi).

The following recipe is one of southern-style hotpot. The key thing for success is the meat or seafood must be good and fresh. Serve 2 as whole meal or 4 as entree.