make shabu shabu for your next dinner party

Everything you need to host hot pot night at home.

I’m the kind of host that gets stressed out. It’s probably inherent, genetic even. I grew up watching my parents host dozens of people over to our house — Friday-night mehmoonis with family friends, Christmas eve with the neighbors, then the next day Christmas with my dad’s side of the family. They went all-out with each one too, serving table-long roast tenderloins, overflowing platters of bejeweled rice, appetizers, dessert, never asking their guests to pitch in by bringing food.

These big-production events were an equally big undertaking. My parents spent days leading up preparing and shopping (and arguing), and days after cleaning it all up. They were grand — and impressive — but executing it wasn’t easy. And now, these parties are a thing of the past. It’s like they drained the joy of hosting after years of overexerting themselves.

So no, I don’t possess the effortlessness of Martha Stewart or Ina Garten. I can’t casually chat with my guests as I put the finishing garnishes on the dinner plate. I’m not chill enough to stir cocktails while a chicken roasts in the oven. But it doesn’t stop me from having my friends over for dinner. I try to break the generational cycle of stressing myself out by making easy-to-execute dinners. Dinners where the work lies in the prep that’s completed in a few hours — like last week’s shabu shabu.

I invited my friends over for dinner on Saturday night and decided to make Japanese hot pot, served rather traditionally with dashi stock, some dipping sauces, and plenty of produce. The beauty of shabu shabu is that it’s cooked and eaten table-side, making for an impressive and occasion-worthy dinner. When in reality, it’s actually really easy to put together with little active cooking time. It’s all in the prep: cleaning the veggies, setting the table, arranging beautiful platters of produce, making the dashi. As for the special equipment, all you need is a portable butane stove top.

The morning of, I made my way over to Chinatown to procure all the ingredients with the most bang for my buck. I stopped into 59 Bayard Market, a grocery store I’ve never been to before, and was able to grab everything I needed for the night in one go. A pound of beansprouts for a dollar, packages of thinly sliced meat, a variety of mushrooms. The prep was so low-key that I even stopped mid grocery run for an impromptu haircut at New Ocean Salon. After returning home, I threw on music and within two hours, dinner was on the table.

I encourage anyone, regardless if you’re a seasoned home cook, to recreate this format for your next dinner party. To help, I broke down everything you need — the groceries, recipes, and prep list — so you can host own shabu shabu night at home:

Step 1: Make the Sauces

I wanted to offer my guests as much variety as possible when building each bite, so I decided to make two dipping sauces — sesame and ponzu — both adapted from Flavor and Seasonings: Dashi, Umami, and Fermented Foods. The sauces came together pretty quickly; under an hour the night before. When it came time for dinner, I set out two bowls of sauces for each guest, that way, no one had to share and worry about double dipping. Of course, you can adjust these recipes to your likings — top with sesame seeds, stir in chili crunch, add scallions.

Ponzu Vinegar with Citrus

Ingredients:
50 milliliters sake
50 milliliters mirin
200 milliliters soy sauce
2 tablespoons water
100 milliliters yuzu and/or lemon juice, strained
Zest from yuzu

Directions:
Combine sake and mirin in a small pot over medium heat. Bring to a simmer to evaporate alcohol. Add soy sauce and water to the pot, bring to a boil then immediately transfer to a heat-proof container. Let the mixture cool slightly, then stir in citrus juice and zest. Store in the refrigerator overnight to let flavors combine.

Goma-ae (Sesame) Dressing

Ingredients:
25 milliliters warm water
1 teaspoon dashi powder
90 grams tahini
60 milliliters soy sauce
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil

Directions:
Add water and dashi powder to a quart container and stir to combine. Add tahini, soy sauce, and sugar to the container, then blend in the same container using an immersion blender. This will help emulsify the sauce and break up the larger, thick chunks of tahini. Once combined, mix in the sesame oil and store until ready to use.

Step 2: Start the Stock

The dashi is the most time consuming component of preparing shabu shabu, but luckily, it’s also very low effort. That is, as long as you remember to put a piece of kombu in water the night before. For the recipe, I relied on Ed’s go-to technique, which I’ve written out for you below. It’s a subtle yet complex stock that’s useful in many different applications. Beyond shabu shabu night, use this recipe as your base for ramen, udon, winter stews, sauces, and more.

Dashi Stock

Ingredients:
2 quarts water
1 small piece of kombu (dried kelp, about 5” x 5” piece)
Large handful of katsuobushi (smoked tuna flakes)
Light soy sauce, to taste

Directions:
Fill donabe (or Dutch oven) with room temperature water and kombu. Leave the pot on the stovetop overnight, heat off, to let flavors develop. About two hours before your guests arrive, turn the heat on low to slowly raise the temperature to 160 degrees Fahrenheit. Once the mixture reaches 160 degrees, slightly lower the heat to maintain the temperature for an hour. Remove kombu from the pot. Adjust heat to high and drop in katsuobushi flakes. After about 20 seconds, remove the flakes using a strainer and discard. Season dashi stock with light soy sauce to your liking and serve.

Step 3: Assemble Your Shabu Shabu Kits

While the dashi cooked, I prepared my shabu shabu kits — platters of dipping accoutrements. I arranged five platters in total, two meat and three veggie, for every two the three guests to share, covered them with a damp paper towel and kept them in the fridge until my guests arrived.

Feel free to switch up the ingredients to whatever you prefer. Swap the pea shoots for chrysanthemum, beef for shrimp or slices of fish, the daikon for carrots, add some herbs. It’s a whatever-you-want-goes type of situation. Just make sure you cut and prepare each item so that it can blanch quickly in the stock.

Veggie Plates

Ingredients:
Napa cabbage, sliced into 2-inch pieces
Firm tofu, cubed
6 baby bok choy, cut in half
1/2 pound bean sprouts
1/2 pound pea shoots
12 shiitake mushrooms, stemmed
1 package shimeji mushrooms, roots removed, and separated
1/2 daikon, peeled and sliced into 1/2-inch rounds, then cut in half (basically half-moon pieces)
2 packages of glass noodles

Directions:
There really aren’t any directions here, since your guests will cook the ingredients themselves. For the presentation though, I like to start with the larger leafy greens in the back, then layer smaller clusters of ingredients in the front, making sure not to stack too many items on top of one another. This technique will add dimension without building too much height and crowding the plate. Don’t feel pressured to put all of the produce on the plate either. I like to leave the extras on a sheet pan in the fridge and top off the shabu shabu platters as the ingredients start to dwindle throughout the night.

Step 4: Bring It All Together

With the pot of dashi simmering on the stove, and my shabu shabu platters in the fridge, it was time to set the table. I started by putting the portable stove top in the center, then placed a wine glass, small plate, rice bowl, linen napkin, chopsticks, and spoon for each guest.

I also took this time to start the rice, mixing short grain rice with a tablespoon of wild rice to give it a nice purple hue and nutty flavor. This added to the visual intrigue of the dinner table — a wide spectrum of colors — resulting in lots of WOWs from my friends. The wine started flowing as everyone started to dip ingredients into the broth then dunk them in the sauces.

As the night went on and the broth simmered down, it got more concentrated. I soaked up all its deliciousness by dropping a few packages of noodles which my friends slurped up. It was a perfect dinner; everyone loved the food and the interactivity of it all, they were full, but not too full, and happy.

coming up next week . . . ‘tis the season of cooking competitions.*
*I pushed out the chili competition mentioned in last week’s newsletter to combine it with another cooking contest that took place this week.

— Rayna