Extremely hot and spicy Mala Xiang Guo.
This is basically an all-in-one-pot meal of meats, seafood and vegetables cooked in mala paste. The taste is high octane and fiery; spicy to the point of causing pain and euphoria at the same time. It is a very potent combination of lip-burning herbs and spices, tongue-numbing Sichuan peppercorns and colon-cleansing hot oil. For the uninitiated, your first encounter with this mala experience will have you singing "hiho, hiho it's off to the can I go". HIHO, as in hot-in-hot-out. You most likely will have painful memories of the first encounter, but you will go back, again and again, because it is that addictive. It is The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of dining experience, all rolled into one.
Ingredients : think in terms of shabu shabu ingredients - any meats, innards, seafood and vegetables you like, use them. You won't really taste them anyway. The sauce rules and overpowers all.
Condiments : (a) mala paste(as seen in pic 1, upper left corner. For beginners, use half a packet only. You want to be able to sit down the next day, hiho!), (b) cooking wine/light soy sauce/meat based broth/fermented bean paste/sugar(let's be honest, detail measurements don't matter, not gonna taste them either).
Cooking : heat 2-3 tbs butter, add mala paste (you should be tearing up in a few seconds), stir until fragrant, add condiments (b), bring to boil. Add ingredients - the ones that take longer to cook, meats and such, should go first, next come seafood and root vegetables, with leafy vegetables going last. Stir-fry until liquid evaporates. The fragrance and aroma will permeate the house by then. Take a deep breath, dig in, enjoy!
You'll have plenty of opportunities to angry-tweet from the toilet, ala Trump, soon thereafter. Have plenty of cool, refreshing drinks on standby.
Ps. The last pic was from a restaurant in Chinatown in Seoul, my first encounter with mala xiang guo. It was an unforgettable experience, before, during and AFTER. Never sweated so much in my life!????????????
All joking aside, I highly recommend this dish!!!
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