Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Mutton Hot Pot - Hong Kong Cantonese Style

It's freezing! Temperature in Hong Kong is dropping these days. We have only 9 degrees today. Time to enjoy hot pot.
Mutton hot pot is one of Hong Kong Cantonese' favourites in cold winter days. Unlike the mutton hot pot in Beijing where you dip the thin slices of mutton into hot water to do the actual cooking, the Hong Kong Cantonese style mutton hot pot is already cooked. However it is served on real fire to keep the heat.
A typical hot pot set comes with the main hot pot and a dish of green vegetable, usually lettuce. My set costs HK$98 + 10% service fee. Some restaurant may sell it at a lower price however charge the vegetables separately. So you have an option of paying less if you don't want to have the vegetables. Believe me, 9 out 10 guests would love to have some vegetable after the hot pot. As they were cooked in the mutton soup, the lettuce becomes extremely delicious.
A special dish of sauce is served with mutton, just to make it less smelly and more delicious. The hot pot usually has some mushroom, water chestnuts and tofu sheets as accessories. They are perfect combinations making the whole set very yummy and most important of all - keeping us warm.

Hong Kong Food Blog - Mutton Hot Pot