Steamboat dinner!
A weekend steamboat dinner around a divided pot: a spicy mala broth, a herbal broth and a milky collagen broth, with vegetables, tofu and meats to cook.
A cosy weekend steamboat dinner with BB, gathered around a bubbling divided pot. ๐ฒ๐
What we had:
- A multi-broth steamboat: a spicy mala broth, a darker herbal broth and a milky collagen broth
- Vegetables, tofu, mushrooms and sliced meats to cook in them, with goji berries floating in the soup
Steamboat is one of those meals that is as much about the doing as the eating, and going for the divided pot meant we could chase three different moods in one sitting. The mala side was the exciting one, numbing and chilli-hot, building a tingle that has you reaching for more. The herbal broth was the comforting, medicinal-sweet one, deepening as more ingredients cooked through it. And the milky collagen broth was the gentle, savoury side, mellow and soothing to balance out the heat.
Half the fun is the rhythm: drop in the longer-cooking vegetables and tofu, swish a slice of meat through until just done, fish it out with the little net, dip and eat while it is hot, then repeat. It stretches over a happy hour or two of cooking, chatting and grazing.
Warm, interactive and endlessly customisable, steamboat is the kind of dinner that feels like an occasion even on a quiet Sunday.
Overall: 4.7 / 5. ๐๐๐ผ Three broths from numbing mala to soothing collagen, a fun and comforting cook-it-yourself dinner. Would re-do often.
