Chongqing Hotpot

Chongqing hotpot, also called tripe hotpot or mala hotpot, centers on a red broth stir-fried from beef tallow, chili, Sichuan pepper, and fermented broad-bean paste. Diners gather around the pot to blanch tripe, duck intestine, aorta, luncheon meat, and many vegetables, dipping them in a sesame-oil and garlic sauce, numbing, spicy, savory, and scalding.

The dish is said to have arisen in the wharf markets along the Yangtze and Jialing rivers, where boatmen and porters washed cheap beef offal and blanched it on riverside clay stoves in a numbing-spicy broth. In the Republican era it moved from pole-and-basket stalls into storefronts, becoming the mala hotpot now found throughout the city.

The traditional nine-grid pot divides the surface into compartments, sorting ingredients by how long they need to cook; tripe is dipped briefly, in and out, eaten the moment it crisps, then dunked in the oil dish to temper the heat. Sitting together and cooking as you eat is the heart of the experience.

A fine pot is judged by a mellow beef-tallow broth, a numbing heat with a sweet return, and a base that stays clear through long boiling, with old houses such as Qiaotou regarded as the standard-bearers.