Sawaddee ka welcome to hot Thai kitchen so today's episode is the final installment of the sukiyaki
trilogy on hot thai kitchen so in Thailand there are three different dishes that go by the name
Suki the first two I've already shown you on the channel the Suki nam which is the noodle soup and
Suki hang which is the stir fry today is the last and most popular kind of Suki which is the Suki
hotpot yes this is the most popular type of Suki in Thailand and if you have had hotpot before you
know that what distinguishes different styles of hotpot is really in the sauce right so today
the sauce I'm gonna show you is going to be in the style of the MK Suki sauce and mkay Suki is
a popular hotpot restaurant chain in Thailand so my sauce is gonna be like that but better
of course and also if you've never put together a hotpot party before do not worry I'm gonna go
through the hotpot 101 of how to put together a well-balanced hotpot platter so that it'll be
delicious everybody's happy and you know what hotpot is the easiest thing to do for a party
because you don't really have to cook anything people just cook their own things right so it's
perfect alright let's get started so this episode is sponsored by pine bran glass noodles which is
my personal favorites band from Thailand and the reason why I like them is because it's a hundred
percent mung bean start and the 100 percent ones are more resistant to overcooking which
is particularly important for hotpot because we all know that sometimes you put it in and you
just forget about it for a mix or a few minutes so it's very important that it you don't use noodles
that they kind of disintegrate super easily right so all you need to do is to soak these
in room-temperature water for about seven to ten minutes just until they're soft and pliable I just
want to point out a little bit to that pine bran makes two different types of glass noodles you
may not see it very well but one is white and the other one has a hint of green so the green one is
unbleached and that's why and they're made from mung beans which are green and that's where the
green tint comes from in terms of cooking they're exactly the same okay I'm just gonna soak these
in water so this brings me to the hot pot 101 segment how to build a well composed hot pot
platter starting with vegetables number 1 leafy greens you want to have at least two types of
leafy greens and I always go with one dark raise and one light green and the light green which I
think is an absolute must-have in hot pot is napa cabbage this one is the cute little one which I
love because napa cabbage can get really big and there's always way too much so the little ones are
great cut them into chunks about an inch and inch and a half separate these into small pieces okay
so apart from that I also have some bok choy which is gonna be my dark green vegetable selection and
then with carrots I want to show you a little trick for making I guess I'll just stay here
carrot ribbons so just take a peeler the carrots already peeled and you just keep peeling nice thin
strips and I learned this from my Japanese friend she does this for her hot pot but look how pretty
that is now right so cool and then you wanna have mushrooms so important mushrooms but the
important thing is you want to do Asian mushrooms no button mushrooms no crimini mushrooms they have
to be aged measure because Asian mushrooms are naturally good in soups they boil well if you
think about boiled button mushroom not good right exactly so you don't want to do that in your hot
pot so enoki are great because they also act kind of like noodles you just have to cut the
root end off right there shiitake mushrooms and I've just removed the stems because the stems are
quite tough and that's it that's all you need to do to that so that's also going on a platter and
mushrooms will also help add flavor to your stock she may eat mushrooms or beech mushrooms and you
just want to cut the root end off and then you want to have a couple of sturdy vegetables the
carrot was one of them the other one that I like is kabocha squash and it becomes like
a starchy component which is nice and hot pot where most things are kind of light and airy
so this is a like a nice sweet substantial thing also helps flavor the broth nicely finally I have
two different types of tofu you always want to do soft tofu no firm tofu and hotpots not good you
want soft silky beautiful tofu this one is soft tofu that comes in a tube shape you can just use
the ones that come in a square but this one is an egg tofu which is my personal favorite is actually
made from eggs not soybeans but it's made to have the texture of tofu and that's why they call it
egg tofu so I like to have both when I was a kid this is like one of my favorite favorite things
to eat and the way you deal with tube tofu is you just cut right there where there's a dotted line
and with a sharp knife cut right through release it from the tube and it's kind of satisfying to
do and then cut them into about half inch pieces what's your fingernails ladies with long nails
they'll usually dig a chunk out of these tofu okay I'm just gonna stop there you can always
add more than this but if this is all you got you got to leafy vegetable of mushrooms a few
tofu you're laughing all right let's move on to the meat for the meat platter for tsuki you
don't have to do anything you have to marinate you have to do anything in fact I don't even
cut it because I will never be able to cut it as nicely as they cut it so in Asian grocery stores
there will be a section in the freezer for hotpot meats yes that's how seriously we take it there's
a section dedicated to hotpot meats this is pork collar and this is beef top plate and there's all
sorts of different cuts you can do ribeye if you want to get a little fancy either short ribs and
I always feel like hotpot platter is basically the Asian version of a charcuterie board more or less
right this third one is pork jowl it's sliced a little bit thicker I've never used this before in
a hotpot but I thought it might be a good thing just to try and you get pork tail hotpot slice
super thin but I feel that the thinly sliced one it almost melts in your mouth too quickly and you
don't really get to enjoy the the fatty porkiness of it so I figured I'd give a go of these thicker
slice ones we'll see what happens look how beautiful that is already what do you want to
also have is assorted fish balls and fish cakes of various sorts so this I got from the frozen
section at nation grocery store for the big case you want to cut that down a little bit there is
our beautiful protein platter now what you could also use that I don't have today is fresh seafood
like raw shrimp raw squid things like that but generally I think those are Messier so when I'm
doing a hot pot I like to just go with fish balls and fish cakes which are much less messy you don't
have to worry about refrigerating them so much but if you want like a full-on luxurious hotpot
definitely some raw seafood before we do the sauce there's a couple of things we need to do
for the noodles so I have drained it and now I'm going to cut it a couple of times just because if
not then it's really long and really difficult to deal with just with scissors and a couple of cuts
and finally the sauce so this sauce I have made a couple times now just for some friends and family
and a few people have come up to me to ask for the recipe because one it's very different from
the hot pot that you can get here in Canada so they've never had a sauce like this and it's
also just really really good there's a reason why it's so popular in Thailand okay and it's
quite easy all you need first is some garlic I'm just getting that down to very very fine so okay I
just have a garlic paste like that next ingredient is quite important it is what we call the houyi or
red bean curd it's a Chinese ingredient and I've used it several times on the show for one reason
or another and it's a fermented bean curd that's got a very unique smell to it and you want to just
grab out a couple of cubes they come in this like soft mushy cubes which I have completely erect
with my tongs you know what tongs probably not the best thing to use to grab these because it most
of them so let's try a spoon okay so that's the remainder of the first cube okay this is sort of
a cube kind of roughly like two tablespoons worth of stuff I want to add just a little bit of the
juice as well mash this up before I transfer this into a pot I'm going to add some toasted white
sesame seeds because I want a chance to crush it but you don't want to add the sesame seeds
whole because then the flavor is contained in the feet it's not coming out so you want to give it a
crush a light crush there you go and those still look whole but at least now they're broken up a
bit okay okay all this goes into the pot a big chunk of this is gonna be hot sauce so Sriracha
hot sauce so I am using just the popular rooster brand sriracha because I developed this recipe
using that because the most widely available one if you use a different brand of sriracha style
hot sauce you may have to adjust the amount of sugar and things a little bit because different
brands have different level of heat and sweetness and vinegar enos if you're using the Thai one for
example it's a lot sweeter and less spicy just as an example now we're also going to add the secret
ingredient ketchup yes we're not some ketchup to it and this will add tartness sweetness and just
general umami and so as you can see this is not a traditional Thai recipe but it won't taste like
ketchup by the end of it trust me boy stur sauce soy sauce toasted sesame oil this is key right
here a little bit of sugar and then some water to mellow everything out and then all I'm gonna
do is bring this to a simmer cook it for a couple minutes on low you don't want to reduce it just to
cook the garlic off a little bit and then you're done great thing about this sauce you can make
a whole bunch keep it in the fridge it basically lasts forever not literally but like a very long
okay that is done hotpot eating time so this is a little bizarre that I'm eating hotpot by
myself in front of a camera this is totally not the antithesis of what a hot pot meal should be
like where normally you'll have a lot of people around a pot so for the stock I'm just using plain
chicken stock I have a recipe I'll link to if you want like a more complex one but if you just boil
some chicken bones add a tiny bit of salt you're good to go now tools you want a hotpot ladle which
is this straining one so you can fish things out and then you want one of these per person
and then for the table you want a couple of soup ladles so to get some soup into your bowl
okay you want to first bring the pot bring the stock to a full boil because you're gonna dump
a bunch of stuff in it and it's gonna stop it's gonna cool down quite a bit so you want to start
out on a full boil it's now boiling vigorously the first things you want to add are all your
vegetables two reasons vegetables some of them can take a bit of time like the mushrooms also
vegetables will help flavor the broth so I just put in a bunch of communal vegetables the only
thing you want to watch for is a squash they do overcook so after about five minutes you kinda
have to keep an eye on them so they don't turn the entire pot yellow so once the vegetables are in
you want to put the glass no dose of course the glass noodles take about a couple of minutes in
boiling water and I like to keep my glass noodles in my sieve because if you put them in outside of
your sieve you will likely lose them forever you won't be able to find them again they'll end up
in the bottom of the pot so I just leave that in here and let it sit hot pot is actually one of
the healthiest meals you can have like in Thailand you know people who are on a diet or whatever they
enjoy a lot of hot pot because there's a lot of vegetables good protein and also the noodles in
hot pot is usually glass noodles right in glass noodles compared to wheat noodles or rice noodles
or even white rice it has lower glycemic index so if that's something that's a concern to you glass
noodles is the way to go with the meat what I like to do especially these like super super-thin it's
I don't even let it go like I literally dip for I don't know five ten seconds until it's cooked
and then I take it out and into my bowl it kind of like it's a little bit of a pet peeve for me
yes the stove is really hot it's a little bit of a pet peeve for me when I see people throw
in thinly sliced pieces of meat and then they just like let it hang out in the tub for like
three minutes and by the time you fish it out it's totally overcooked like this will take you
know ten seconds to cook great one thing you can add and just kind of let them go is all the fish
balls also you can add and they kind of last a long time in there you don't have to worry
too much about how long okay and what I like to do is my make I make myself a little bowl like
a little noodle soup bowl so I cook a bunch of stuff first and then I eat but some people like
to do the opposite where they just cook up cook to things eat the two things cook some more eat
I Coco Coco Coco and then I II dddd see how fun is this the only sad part is I'm by myself well
Adam is here but he's not participating right now okay I think that's a full bowl get a little
bit of soup the way you want to eat hotpot it's different for everybody whatever you like right
for some people they just take one piece dip and eat what I like to do is I put a little
bit of this sauce into my bowl and make sort of like a little soup that's some more broth here
make a little soup bowl and then I'll still dip in addition to that give a little dip dip
the important thing the noodles that sauce is everything it's sour sweet that flavor that
aroma of toasted sesame oil just a little bit of spiciness it's good on everything whatever you
dip it in here it will be good and the noodles a really really great texture that goes well
with the meat the vegetable is a great thing about glasses the reason why glass noodles is like the
noodles you want to use for hot pot is is a couple of reasons one it's a very neutral noodle that
goes well with everything it doesn't have much of a flavor in and of itself say compared to egg
noodles right so it's a great canvas for all sorts of flavor too when you cook the noodles in the
broth no starch leeches into the broth and muck it up if you try to cook rice noodles or try to
cook egg noodles in this broth eventually add that broth is gonna get murky so there's a reason why
glass widows the hot pot noodles that you want and it's just it just works so well with everything
the recipe as always will be on hot hsn.com when you make it send me a photo on Facebook Twitter
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this video thank you as always for watching and I will see you next time for your next delicious