(Picture: 视觉中国)

CHONGQING (CQNEWS) -- In more than 20 days, the National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival holidays will arrive. In Chongqing, the “hot pot city”, hot pot will undoubtedly become the first choice for countless people for dinner and banquets.

What are the specialties about eating hot pot? Recently, a reporter from Chongqing Evening News took this question to interview some owners of several hot pot restaurants and senior hot pot foodies, and sorted out the details of having hot pot. Just collect and have a try!

Detail 1: Be sure to wait until the pot boils before cooking dishes

Ms. Liu, the proprietress of Maoji Hotpot in Yubei District, said that the first detail of eating hotpot should be “wait for boiling”.

According to Ms. Liu, some dinners would immediately pour the entire dish into the pot, and even cooked frozen vegetables such as frozen fish when the pot was served. “If that happens, everyone delays eating and has to keep staring at the pot. It’s very awkward.”

Tip: Before the pot is boiled, you can pour the duck blood into the cold pot to “cook” it. After the pot is boiled, boil the duck intestines, hair belly and other hot dishes, and cook other cold dishes and frozen dishes step by step.

Detail 2: Respect other people’s soup pot

Cai Qiu, 30 year sold, is an authentic hotpot addict. She eats hot pot every week and only chooses hot pot of red soup. But she said that it was also important to respect other people’s soup pots.

Cai Qiu said that for those who don’t eat spicy food, you should stop stressing that “slight spicy food is the last compromise” and should take the initiative to choose Yuanyang pot (two-flavor pot). After eating, people who put vegetables in the red pot must pay attention not to scratch the dishes from the soup pot, or after several rounds, the soup pot will also be dripping with red oil.

Tip: If there are guests at the same table who don’t eat spicy food, you should better “protect” the soup pot after ordering “pot in pot” and “Yuanyang pot”. In addition, if you also want to eat the dishes in the soup pot, please use another clean chopsticks.

Detail 3: Don’t pour all the dishes into the pot

Sun Hong and her husband have operated a hot pot restaurant in Huangniyuan, Yubei District for more than a year. She said that she has seen this scene many times: some customers (especially the hostess) poured duck intestines, cattle stomach, and waist slices into a pot and boil them in order to show their hospitality.

“Duck intestines and cattle stomach tend to lose their crispness when cooked in a pot, and become too hard to bite,” Sun explained.

Tip: You can put it on the plate when you want to cook it. For example, cattle stomach takes only a few tens of seconds. Instant boiled food is not only delicious, but also an expectant process.

Detail 4: Don’t throw back uncooked dishes if you have bit it

“One of my colleagues was disgusting to eat hot pot. After eating a mouthful of fat sausage, she found that it was not cooked. She threw it back into the pot and said it would be cooked for a while.” Ms. Chen, 28, who worked for a new media company in Nan’an District, said that during a dinner party, a female colleague disgusted everyone. Faced with doubts at the same table, the female colleague also said: “It doesn’t matter. Why are you afraid of high temperature disinfection?” The reporter found in the interview that several foodies also mentioned this phenomenon.

Tip: If the food you have bitten into is still raw, you’d better throw it away instead of returning it to the pot. In this way, it can both keep the safety and show your good personality.

Detail 5: The potatoes and vermicelli should be cooked last

Sun Hong, the owner of the hot pot restaurant, said that among people who love hot pot, many people liked to eat potatoes and noodles (especially girls). But please be sure to hold back and put them in the pot at the end. Because, if starchy ingredients are put in the pot early, the end will be a “sticky soup” or a “paste pot.”

“That’s why some hot pot restaurants don't sell potatoes now,” Sun Hong said. Once the pot is “sticky”, the taste of the whole pot will change, and the delicious index will be greatly reduced.

Tip: As for the first sentence, it is necessary to pour them into the pot at last and to monitor it in real time. After cooking, take it out as soon as possible to reduce the damage to the original taste of the bottom of the pot.

Detail 6: Don’t take a bowl of plain rice just for removing the oil

Jiang Jian, 27, was a programmer. He said that the last thing he wanted to see when eating hot pot was that some people don’t eat a bowl of rice when they ate hot pot. They just used it to remove oil.

“They took a dish, wrapped it in an oil dish first, and then put it on the bowl of rice. After the oil was sucked away, they began to eat the dishes. It is called oil removing.” Jiang Jian said that such an artificial and wasteful behavior of grain was really beyond his comprehension. In particular, some dinners saw a bowl of rice filled with oil, would command the waiter to pour out, and then ordered a second bowl to remove the oil.

Tip: If you don’t eat oil, you can order the soup pot. If you still want to keep the spicy flavor and remove the oil, you can ask the waiter to pour a bowl of boiling water and rinse it before eating. (Translated by Luo Juan, Fathom Language Limited)