Supermarket Dumplings Hot Pot
Happy Chinese New Year of the Rat! 祝大家“鼠”不尽的快乐和钞票。After taking a 2-month break from posting recipes due to hectic house moving, I can finally settle down a little at my new home. As my new kitchen is not fully equipped yet, I can only make simple meals such as this supermarket dumplings hot pot which takes less than 15 minutes to put together. I cheated (as usual) with the help of frozen supermarket dumplings. Although it is simple, I think this hot pot is apt for CNY as these dumplings look like Chinese ingots, representing prosperity. Of course, it will be perfect for the quickest after-work hot pot anytime of the year outside of CNY.
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These are my frozen dumplings. I used the above brand which is introduced by my mum. You can find it at Sheng Siong or Prime supermarket. My favourite flavour is the pork with mushroom or cabbage. I like that these dumplings do not contain preservatives & MSG. You can use any favourite brand. There is no need to thaw the frozen dumplings – in fact it will be better to cook them while still frozen, so that they will not stick to each other as they thaw to room temperature.
The 5-minute soup stock is really optional. You can actually just use water and boullion cubes, or any instant soup stock. But I just wanted to use up the top portion of the scallion, which I always find a waste to discard.
Supermarket Dumplings Hot Pot
The frozen dumplings need not be thawed prior to cooking so as to prevent them sticking to one another. Add the frozen dumplings to the hot pot only when they are ready to be cooked.
Feel free to adapt the vegetables in this recipe with your favourite seasonal ingredients.
If you don’t have time to make the soup stock in step 1, just add water and bouillon cubes directly to the hot pot for the soup base.
Ingredients:
- 15-20 supermarket frozen dumplings do not thaw; use any favourite brand
Soup Base
- 1.2 litre water
- 2 scallion (negi) use only the top dark green portion
- 1 tbsp mushroom seasoning powder
- half MSG-free chicken soup cube
Vegetables
- 6-8 large napa cabbage leaves cut to chunks
- 1 king oyster mushroom sliced thinly lengthwise
- 2 Japanese scallion (negi) sliced white portion at a slant to 2.5cm length
- 6 shiitake mushrooms stalks removed; make a 6-star pattern on each mushroom cap
- handful enoki mushrooms & hon shimeji ends trimmed
- 10 thinly sliced carrots cut to flowers
You also need
- Hot pot casserole, donabe or earthen clay pot
- Portable Stove
Directions:
- Make the soup stock. In a small pot, add water, scallion top portion, mushroom powder and soup cube. Bring to a simmer for 5 minutes and discard the scallion.
- Make the hot pot. Arrange a bit of each vegetable attractively in a hotpot casserole. Place the rest of the ingredients (that can’t fit into the pot) in a separate platter.
- When ready to serve, fill hot pot with soup stock. Cover the pot with lid and gradually bring to a simmer for about 4 minutes. Enjoy the dumplings hot pot, topping up regularly with more soup stock (or water if the soup is used up) and ingredients from the platter.