In a steam pot

It's quite a fortuitous thing, I’d say; a bout of illness has reacquainted me with the joys of a steamboat. Nothing fancy, it’s just a boiling pot of stock, into which you put an assortment of ingredients only limited by the your imagination and the diameter of your steamboat. The Swiss have fondue, we have steamboat. And into the pot, you can have anything from chicken broth (an excellent choice for weak stomachs or when you’re still suffering from stomach flu) to chilli oil Ma La soup, which is numbingly spicy and apt to give you diarrhoea unless you’re made of sterner stuff. But some people swear it’s how southern Chinese women stay svelte and shapely, as opposed the popular conception that it is the rigours of planting rice that explains their enviable BMI.

But back on the subject, it sure beats eating porridge. The very idea terrifies me. But steamboat, it seems, never gets tired. I could eat it every day. For a successful steamboat, I have found the following ingredients to be absolutely necessary. The beauty if it is, there’s no need to be dogmatic about steamboat, eat what you like. But I do recommend the following:

Tau Gua: its tofu, but the rougher variety. I’m sure there’s a proper name for it, but I’m tired.

Fish balls: fantastic eco-friendly shit. Not fish testicles (because they don’t have any. Whales aren’t fish), just some fish meat (very little, I gather), flour and seasoning rolled into a ball and there u have it – tasty seafood that does not denude the ocean, and there aren’t any bones to pierce your throat!

Cabbage: they’re so sweet, I can’t imagine steamboat without them. And I hear they are the reason why Korean senior citizens are so… robust, that they eat cabbages with all four meals a day. Easy to wash and prepare also, which is always a bonus.

Mushrooms: experiment. Enoki’s great, along with the while ones that look like little people.

And pick a meat.

Enjoy.