Seafood Nabe Recipe

My grad school friends and I loved our mutual friend's version of Japanese hotpot. It is the same concept as fondue, only this is served as a main meal. You can select whatever meats and veggies you like to go in a soup. My favorite is seafood.

My friend would re-hydrate and boil kelp in water (enough to fill the clay pot 3 times) until the kelp is softened. Then he would mix good sake and soy sauce while we helped prepare the seafood. He would then pour some of the broth into a special clay pot over a portable stove. When everyone arrived and sat around the table, we would drop in the seafood and wait for everything to cook while we chatted over drinks.

Once the food was cooked, we would fish out the different ingredients in the broth. If there was not enough broth after the first round of cooking, he would simply topped it with the pre-made broth. We would continue to cook the food throughout the night by dropping and fishing out the food stuff until everyone had his or her fullest.

At the end of the meal, the broth would taste good enough to drink by itself as it contained all the nutrients and flavors from the different ingredients, or save to cook soups in the near future.

When making this dish, be sure to cook raw meats first, followed by pre-cooked food and vegetables.

Seafood hotpot

In the picture, there are fish cakes, a variety of mushroom, crabs, clams, mussels, fish and meat balls, shrimp, napa cabbage, green onions and shrimps. Noodles, rice, other vegetables and meats can be used as well.