♪ >> By last count, there are more than 30,000 hot pot restaurants in Chengdu, 30,000.

There are only 24,000 restaurants in total in entire New York City.

So are we talking about an addiction or obsession?

Just how much do the people in Chengdu love their hot pot, and why?

Pull up a chair.

Stick around, and you'll find out next on "Yan Can Cook."

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> "Yan Can Cook: Spice Kingdom" is brought to you by... >> ♪ Yeah, yeah ♪ >> Circulon cookware.

Circles for life.

>> Monogram.

A full line of professional appliances designed for food and entertaining enthusiasts.

♪ ♪ By Melissa's.

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By Lutian.

Tasting the essence of lotus.

By Granite Expo.

Offering a wide selection of cabinet and countertop solutions.

And by B&G Group of Malaysia.

♪ Building Malaysia's tomorrow.

♪ ♪ >> Finally!

I've been waiting for hours.

Felt like days.

This is my far the most popular hot pot restaurant in Chengdu, and getting a table here is just like winning the lottery.

Lucky for me, the owner is a friend, so I get to wait on one of these.

I've been here for 4 hours.

My turn!

I got to rush up there before I miss my seat.

♪ ♪ Hot pot, just like fondue, is a communal pot, cook, put all kind of food inside.

Everybody help themselves, participate.

You cook it for yourself, and then the first thing you do is put green onion right in there and dip it in and get that extra flavor.

Now your ready to go.

In the next step, in hot pot, you make your own sauce.

Sesame seed oil.

In Sichuan, they love sesame seed oil.

And then you put a tiny bit of cilantro, chopped.

Green onion, this is the basic sauce.

In the meantime, food is coming.

Look at that, all kind of stuff.

[ Speaks Chinese ] Look at this!

Ice ball!

Just like fondue.

Whatever you like, put it in and dip it in.

>> [ Speaks Chinese ] >> Whoa!

Look at this.

This is a slice of premium beef.

Looks like a sushi bowl.

Amazing!

Okay.

No, you have two sauces here.

One is a hot, spicy, numbing chili sauce, and that is a tomato base.

Okay, great.

Oh, this is a wonderful.

What is inside?

>> [ Speaks Chinese ] >> [ Speaks Chinese ] This is goose intestine.

Amazing.

Look at that.

In the ice ball.

You know why?

Because they want to make it nice and clean and fresh, okay?

>> About 10 second.

>> Ten second, ten second.

>> Yeah.

[ Speaks Chinese ] It's in a nice ice ball.

You might ask me, "Martin, goose or duck intestine?"

You know what?

For the Chinese, they'll eat anything that's edible, anything with four legs, anything that flies, okay?

Cook 10 seconds.

You dip it in here, the dipping sauce you have prepared.

Mmm.

And then you bite into this, and you are ready to enjoy this first bite of the hot pot.

Mmm.

Mmm.

In America, there's a saying, "No business like show business."

Show time!

♪ Dangerous!

Now you stretch the noodle.

You break it up.

Tear it apart and break it again, and you tear it apart and break it again, and then you dump it into boiling broth.

Noodle business!

This is a noodle bowl.

You know, in Chengdu, they always say, "No business like food business."

Let us continue to eat!

♪ Hot pot is a very popular way for everyday people to get together with friends and family.

In Da Maio Restaurant, hot pot also attracts some very important guests.

Oh, I did say that show business and food business go hand in hand in Chengdu.

Here, every meal is a performance.

♪ [ Speaks Chinese ] ♪ ♪ ♪ >> Oh, I really like hot pot.

In winter, we eat a lot.

♪ By now, you may think that hot pot is an elaborate meal, a lot of waiting outside and inside and definitely something that you will save for a formal occasion.

In Chengdu, hot pot can be a daily, casual experience.

Here in Da Zui, which, by the way, means Mouth King, how much more casual can you get?

Everything is designed with fun in mind.

When you think of hot pot in Chengdu, hot and spicy, and if hotter and more spicy.

I'm going to taste.

Tomato broth.

Oh!

Delicious, not hot.

This is a wonderful change.

Enjoy.

[ Speaks Chinese ] [ Conversing in Chinese ] Oh, never seen this before.

[ Conversing in Chinese ] This is like a wok-thin crispy pancake, but it seems to me it's not crispy here.

It's crispy... [ Conversing in Chinese ] Crispy, I love it.

That sweetness, it looks caramelized, and yet it's like a bun.

I'm going to learn how to make this.

This is very interesting.

Brush a tiny bit of oil.

♪ Coat it around.

♪ Continuous.

Dough is actually sliding all the way to the bottom.

♪ ♪ For 2 minutes.

Caramelize smell because of the sugar in the dough.

Look at that!

Nice and golden brown.

[ Speaks Chinese ] Interesting.

Wow.

Turn around.

This is beautiful.

Look at this guy!

Looks like a regular customer.

[ Camera shutter clicks ] As you can see, everybody love hot pot in Chengdu.

But guess what -- Sichuan-style hot pot is also gaining popularity in North America and around the world.

So what is the secret of a good Chengdu hot pot?

First is the stock.

Start -- number one, heat up your pot.

Oil, about 1/3 cup to 1/2 cup at the most, not much.

And then Sichuan-style chili paste, hot and spicy.

[ Sizzles ] Ah, can you hear?

And then stir it a little bit.

Ah, now you can see it's getting nice and red already, and then chili.

Ah, without the chili, it's not Chengdu food, okay?

A lot of chili with the seed.

Continue.

What makes this really Chengdu, really Sichuan?

Peppercorn.

This is green peppercorn, a lot of them.

Red peppercorn, [ Speaks Chinese ] This is from a very famous place that they only grow this, Han Yuen.

And then, next, crushed chili pepper.

Look at that.

A lot of them!

That's what makes it!

Oh, it's going to be beautiful, very, very hot.

And then not just hot and spicy, flavorful.

This is the key, ginger, crushed ginger, crushed garlic, a lot of garlic.

Okay?

Now, this is the key.

You continue to bring this to boil, hot.

Look at this, star anise, spices and then cardamom, white cardamom and fennel.

All together and bay leaf.

Now, this is going to be amazing, okay?

And then now I think I would like to have a tiny bit more oil because in Chengdu, they love that oil, that hot oil floating on top.

And then here I have a stock.

You can use fish stock, chicken stock, or beef stock.

Doesn't matter.

The key is to allow this to cook long enough to have all the spices permeate and infuse into the hot oil.

While I'm cooking this and heating this up, I'm going to cut up a couple of vegetables.

Here, I have mushroom.

Cut it like this.

Make it nice and beautiful.

Cut it.

Cut it like a star, okay?

Look at this.

Look at the star.

This is done.

This is done.

I'm going to shut this off and put the broth right here.

It's going to be hot, very.

Now, you can filter this and just get the hot oil.

Wow.

Look at that!

Oh, look at how hot this is.

Look at this.

This is really Chengdu, nice and hot.

And it's still boiling.

Look at that!

Amazing.

I already shut it off.

It is boiling.

This is how hot it is.

As I mentioned, hot pot is popular is Sichuan cuisine.

Now this is the... Look at how hot this is, nice and hot, beautiful.

Ah!

Look at this.

This is the broth in the middle, so you can have a choice of the two broth.

One is the savory broth.

One is a Chengdu hot and spicy broth.

In the meantime, I'm going to cut up some shrimp so you can have a choice.

I butterfly the shrimp, and then when this is done, we put it all together, and this is the choice of ingredients.

Now put this in the savory broth.

This is not hot.

Tomato, green onion, ginger and red date.

This is very good.

And then occasionally, I also will put a tiny bit of rock sugar or just sugar and a tiny bit of black beans, sauté them.

But this is better, okay, already soaked.

To make it even hotter, you can actually add some extra.

Wow!

Wow, look at this!

This is potent.

Look at this.

Look at the color of this, okay?

Oil before mix with the broth.

Look at this.

Ah!

Ah!

Whoa!

Going to be hot.

Let us cook.

Look at this.

This how they do it.

They dip it in.

Look at that!

This is the Chengdu style.

Dip it in with the crushed chili, and then put it in.

Wow!

Look at this.

This is beautiful.

The key is, everybody dig in.

Everybody get involved.

You know, hot potting is not only popular in Chengdu.

Hot potting is popular all over the world, and you can do it at home, so hot potting at home with your family, your friends, and I thank you so very much for joining me in my kitchen, and let's continue to do hot potting.

This is so good.

I love it.

This is a meatball.

This is the meatball.

>> Thank you.

>> You see?

This is... Wow.

Guess what!

They're naming January Chengdu's hot pot culture month.

No surprise there.

Hot pot is so much of Chengdu's culture, to have only one month totally devoted to it is actually very modest.

As far as I'm concerned, every month is Chengdu's hot pot month.

One thing for sure -- From now on, January is the hottest month of the year in Chengdu.

♪ >> I loved it.

♪ >> By now, some of you at home may be saying, "Hey, now all that hot pot stuff might be interesting, but where's the beef?"

Welcome to Chengdu's all-beef hot pot!

Holy cow.

[ Conversing in Chinese ] This is supposed to be a beef hot pot, so where's the beef?

Perfect.

Now this, what is this?

>> [ Speaking Chinese ] >> Oh, this is braised beef, a whole big piece of beef braised in a special white mustard sauce.

So it's already partially cooked.

And this is handcraft -- chopped-up beef ball, beef ball.

Use the best-quality beef.

If I tell you, you may be surprised.

"Martin, is it really, really hot?"

I say, "It's hot, but not really, really hot."

It's bearable.

I can take it.

Now look at the ladle.

It's slotted, so you're not getting the red-hot chili oil into it, so you're cooking in it but not eating it that much, so that's why it's acceptable.

[ Conversing in Chinese ] Mmm!

Good to the last bite!

Nice, moist, and they must have added a lot of seasoning inside.

You have green onion.

You have garlic.

You have cilantro, and you have celery all chopped up, put it inside, very aromatic, nice and moist and soft.

Mmm.

I love it.

♪ Wow.

Some of my friends think that hot pot is simply too much work.

You have to first find what you like, dip it, wait and dip some more before you could take your first bite.

♪ ♪ Now, this may remind you of the conveyor belt at the baggage claim area at the airport, but it makes it easy.

Instead of picking out things that you may not be familiar with from a huge menu, just wait and see.

What you see is what you get.

♪ ♪ ♪ Guess where we're going next!

Hey, you're right, another hot pot restaurant.

But don't worry.

There are 30,000 hot pot restaurants in Chengdu, and we won't make it to every one of them.

By my calculation, more new hot pot restaurants have been opened in Chengdu during the time of this show than the number that we actually visited.

Now just what makes this place different than any other -- 29,999 other hot pot restaurants in Chengdu?

One word -- fish.

Ah, freshwater fish.

Dip it in.

It is paper-thin.

It doesn't take too long to cook.

Look at that.

Just dip it in, and basically it's done.

Butterfly, and now you put some broth right here.

This broth organic, green.

>> Thank you.

>> This is a special spice, local plants, looks like it's very aromatic and also good for the summer.

It's supposed to get rid of your... We call it chi.

When it's too much moisture in your body, this is good, okay?

And then we can just dip this in.

Now, if you like hot and spicy food, ah, by all means, add some extra chili right there.

So this is self-help.

Mmm, beautiful.

>> Thank you.

>> Ah.

The great thing about hot pot is you help yourself.

Okay.

[ Speaks Chinese ] Mmm, paper-thin, takes less than 15 seconds.

Mmm.

Freshwater fish from the local water, amazing.

Fresh, savory and hot and spicy because she just add some stuff right here, and now the aroma from this is amazing.

Mmm.

Mmm.

♪ For countless people in Chengdu, a day without hot pot is just like a day without sunshine.

But what if you're stuck at home, no time, no friends, by yourself?

You're lonely, so... Hey, not a problem.

They will solve it.

This hot pot for one.

Just add water.

You will do it.

♪ >> You can visit our website to learn more about Martin and his travels, get information about upcoming events, find and print selected recipes, provide e-mail feedback, and more.

It's all at yancancook.com.

"Yan Can Cook: Spice Kingdom" is brought to you by... >> ♪ Yeah, yeah ♪ >> Circulon cookware.

Circles for life.

>> Monogram.

A full line of professional appliances designed for food and entertaining enthusiasts.

♪ ♪ By Melissa's.

The freshest ideas in produce.

By Lutian.

Tasting the essence of lotus.

By Granite Expo.

Offering a wide selection of cabinet and countertop solutions.

And by B&G Group of Malaysia.

♪ Building Malaysia's tomorrow.

♪ ♪ ♪