Tomato and Beef Pot 番茄牛肉鍋

Back in the days, when I first moved to California, I was still getting used to the whole new place. Everything was new, such as school, friends, even smaller things like where to eat, and where can I buy groceries. As for cooking at home, in order to keep it simple while I was still adjusting to a whole new kitchen setting, sometimes I would just toss everything into a big pot and use store-bought Chinese soup base to make a hot pot-like meal.

Most of the time it'll be spicy hot pot based stock, and once a while the plainer version but I'll prep up some sacha sauce on the side. Now that I've grown up, also much more experienced in the kitchen, I still like to prepare a hot pot based meal once a long while. However, this time around, my pot of easy meal got a little upgrade.

Tomato and beef pot 番茄牛肉鍋 - 

Ingredients?

• 2 to 3 ripe tomatoes
• 1 can/14.5 oz diced tomatoes
• 2 1/2 cups chicken stock
• 1 small onion
• 1 square/1 box fried bean curd
• 1 pack white shimeji mushroom
• 1/4 small cabbage
• 1 small bundle cilantro
• 12 slices beef
• 2 tablespoons light-tasting cooking oil
• 2 teaspoon salt
• 1 corn on the cob

Optional:

• Some baby Chinese cabbage
• Some baby corn
• Few pumpkin slices
• Few carrot slices
• Other ingredients of your liking

How?

Peel and slice the onion. Chop the tomatoes. Slice the fried bean curd to triangular shaped chunks. Trim-off the ends for the mushroom and separate them to individual pieces. Chop the corn on the cob to 3 to 4 shorter chunks.

Tear the cabbage to smaller pieces. Destem the cilantro. Also prep all the other optional ingredients. Use whichever ingredients you would normally enjoy in a hot pot or shabu shabu.

Bring out a pot or per my case, a clay pot. Drizzle 2 tablespoons of oil and turn to medium heat. Once warmed up, add in onion slices along with 1 teaspoon of salt. Sear till the onion turns translucent. 

Add in chopped tomatoes and stir-fry till softened.

Pour in canned diced tomatoes along with its juice. Also pour in 2 1/2 cups of chicken stock. Season with extra 1 teaspoon of salt here too. Bring up the heat to a boil then lower to keep at a simmer.

Arrange tougher ingredients to the pot, like corn on the cob, cabbage, carrot, and pumpkin. Put on the lid and cook for around 5 minutes while still keeping it at a slightly boiling stage.

Remove the lid and arrange all the remaining ingredients over. Transfer beef slices over too, I put them in the center. Put the lid back on and wait till the beef is nearly cooked through, about 2 minutes. 

Note that I've only used 2 teaspoons of salt for the entire pot but you can always taste and adjust with more seasonings.

However, keeping it on a lighter side means you can prep up extra dipping sauce if preferred.

Some sauce suggestions, us Taiwanese especially love it with some sacha sauce, others like it spicy with freshly chopped chilies along with soy sauce. As for me, this simple and slightly sourish base is just what I needed at the moment.  

Extended reading:

• Sukiyaki style nabeyaki udon (すき焼き風鍋焼きうどん)