i'm cooking mongolian hot pot also known as shabu-shabu in japan and known by other names throughout asia it's a really fun recipe to make and this was inspired by my mom she just kind of throws the kitchen sink when she makes this so first we're going to start getting with a big pot i like to use the wok but you can use any large pot and then i'm just going to fill this up with water and i want to bring it to a boil i just added you want to add four to eight cups of water to the pot and i'm bringing it to a boil meanwhile i have my herbs here the herbs form the base for mongolian hot pot you can choose various kinds of herbs this is just a choice that i need i have huang chi astragalus goji berries which you can get at any health food store lotus nuts gun style licorice root dung guy it's called chinese angelic in english and long in row i believe it's called lankan berries in english and you'll see i got them fresh where you have to crack the nut and then inside if you buy it at an urban sword it looks like this and then this is which is a chinese jujube date and this is the one that has been smoked so these are just basically harmonizing generally tonifying herbs they i chose these herbs because most people can use them they're not contraindicated for most people you can also make it more specific if you have a special condition going on i'm going to add these to the pot i want to let them simmer for a good 30 minutes to make sure the medicinal properties of the herbs get into the soup this soup is really medicinal if you have a cold starting up or if you want to boost your immunity in times when other people are coming down with cold it's wonderful to do that it's also great to increase your stamina if you play sports it's also good for sports because we're going to be adding some other spices that are good to move the blood in the body it's important to move your blood if you run if you lift weights you do any athletics because that's going to keep you from getting injuries it's going to keep any stagnation that's built up in your muscles it'll help flush it out also wonderful for if you have a menstruation or postpartum because we would have warming spices that are going to be going in a minute and also tonifying herbs that we just added and when you add those together it's going to warm up the body help move blood so it's going to help to clean up the uterus and help prevent cramps as well next i'm going to add some thai inspired spices to the soup that's just my personal choice you can use whatever you have handy i like to start off with lemongrass i'm just going to chop it into bigger slices usually i will i like to mince it pretty finely but for the soup i'm just going to have some big chunks so it's going to look like this just going to add these to the pot then i'm going to add some kefir lime leaves these add a nice interesting flavor and it's really essential when you're making anything that tastes like thai food so i'm just going to kind of cut i'm going to fray the edges here just to allow the oils and the flavors to come out a little bit more but i'm not going to cut all the way through to the spine i'm only cutting the edges of the leaves here and as you can see the dogs are already forming around me i saw this great youtube cooking show called cooking with dog and no they don't cook the dog but they have this beautiful wonderfully behaved poodle that just sits there by the stove while the owner is cooking and that would never happen in my household though i'm tempted to try it out so here we have these little guys all frayed up here what i love about this soup is that you don't have to spend so much time chopping things up you can just kind of chop things up a little bit more crudely and just throw them in the pot which is kind of fun because usually i'm so particular about chopping things up correctly add the kefir lime and these spices are so aromatic as you're cooking it's really an experience next i'm going to have the shallots shallots are potent little onions is basically what they are and you can find these at any grocery store so i'm just going to slice them here you can chop them however you like i'm just appreciating lazy cooking today so i'm going to chop them in thick slices here and throw them in there so i have one big shallot and two smaller ones so about the size of two large cloves that it really is based upon taste next i have a nice little knob of ginger and i've left a little bit of the skin on there the skin helps to skin in general of herbs has a more diuretic quality so it's nice to remove any excess water that you may have built up and again i'm just going to chop it into large slices here i'm not going to finely mince it as i usually do for cooking those in there these are going to make it nice and spicy and it's already smelling amazing this is another similar to ginger it's in the same family it's called galanga very popular in thai cooking this is a little bit thicker and harder to cut i'm going to chop it into larger slices here and then i have turmeric root you can just add turmeric powder if you'd like i'm adding this because it's a wonderful blood mover and blood purifier so because i'm wanting to make a nice warming soup that's going to help move the blood and also help with the immune system i wanted to add a little bit of turmeric as well so again i'm just going to do some large tops here really beautiful color i'm going to add a little bit more seasonings i like to add something called black bean and garlic sauce you can also just add regular garlic i just like it because that's a little bit more interesting flavor so it's about you know maybe two teaspoons of it i'm just gonna put this in the pot and it's already smelling amazing next i'm going to add miso again two full maybe three teaspoons of miso this is organic gmo free miso because soy beans are a heavily gmo crop so that's important if you want to cook healthy food for your family so i'm just going to let this simmer in here so when you're starting off you want to let the herbs simmer by themselves for about 30 minutes before you add the spices and the seasonings as i've started to do right now i like to add some kombu seaweed seaweed is amazing for your health it has it's high in minerals it's also going to help regulate bowel movements it's amazing for the skin it helps to detoxify the body so it has a lot of wonderful functions about it so i'm just going to actually add quite a bit here to my supermassive i rinsed it off first really important and i'm just going to break it off into some big pieces here and again one dog in particular is getting really excited and you can see her here my little white fluffy dog molly loves seaweed you want to give the pot a nice stir to make sure make sure everything is dissolving as it should and incorporating into the soup now i'm going to add my protein i chose chicken breast which i have sliced thinly here you can also use a vegetarian protein you can use beef you can use shrimp you can use whatever kind of protein that you'd like i'm just going to put this in here and again i'm going to give it a nice stir now we start with the vegetables this is chanyeol or also known as faishan it's dicoria it is chinese yam there's a few different names for it it's incredible to both nourish the fluids in the body beautify the skin also tonify chi increase stamina increase immunity and it doesn't have much flavor it's really bland so you can easily put it into any recipe and i just kind of slice it into little slices here um it has a little bit of a stringy consistency when you have it raw which some people like other people don't like so much but when you cook it it just has this kind of a potato-y kind of consistency and this smells unbelievable there's nothing like thai spices to make something to smell nice you want to start off with the vegetables base that could take the longest to cook so i've added the root vegetables first if you have potatoes or sweet potatoes you want to add this first next i'm going to add corn corn is great because it adds sweetness to the soup the herbs and the spices have a little bit of a bitter quality to them the corn is going to sweeten everything up it's going to harmonize everything you might have been wondering why there was a mallet in the kitchen and this is my mom's method for saving your hands while you you cut the corn so you're going to get a nice big knife here and then you're going to get the mallet don't do that so now we have my mom demonstrating how to do it properly so you don't fling the corn first you're going to dig in the knife and then you're going to go at it well the cleaning crew has arrived to take care of the spilled corn so i'm glad that's taken care of now i'm going to add the celery so i'm just going to chop this up here a little bit and while i've got some more it's really great to be a dog in my kitchen because i draw half of what i'm cooking on the floor so they always eat well i'm just going to add this to my pump which is going strong here i'm going to add some eggplant eggplant is great for moving the blood so it's wonderful again if you are an athlete or if you have any kind of gynecological issues it's a great food to add a great vegetable to add to your cooking i like to remove the skin because it can be difficult to digest so i'm just removing this real fast with a paring knife after i've removed the skin i'm going to do a nice thick chopping here i don't drop this on the floor the dogs will not eat the eggplant unfortunately so it will be wasted finally i have some cabbage you can use any vegetables that you like to cook with there really are no rules and if you're doing this for company this is really fun to do you can just use the stock so basically the herbs the seasonings maybe probably not the meat actually you just put the herbs in the seasonings let it start cooking let it be nice and ready warm it up before the guests arrive and have all of your vegetables and your protein chopped and ready to go so they can be part of the process of cooking it's a really fun party food for that reason and then if you're cooking for your family you can just cook it ahead of time and just put everything like i'm doing and again you want to make sure you're always stirring and incorporating the vegetables so they're cooking with everything else because you're getting a little tight in here now all these ingredients but that's the good part for the very last step you want to add any greens so i'm going to add some thai basil you can use other fresh spices like regular basil or you know whatever you'd like to use also if you're going to be adding spinach or other leaves you want to do it at the very end because they're going to cook really quickly so i'm just going to kind of chop this a little bit here not too finely but i don't want to cut it up a little bit here this is going to be the final aromatic step here to the soup which already smells really amazing and this is going to cook up in a second so we're done i'm just going to make sure i stir this as much as i can here the hot pot is ready to serve now you have a few different options you can just have the soup acid especially if you want to do a lower carb diet you can also have a kind of grain either rice or in this case i have some quinoa already cooked you can just put some of this in a bowl and put the hot pot soup over it you can also add some noodles either to the full bowl or to the individual bowls and put the soup over it at the end whatever is left over from the soup in some traditions they like to use that to make fried rice afterwards so you have a few different choices in the youtube cooking show cooking with dog they do not feed the co-hosts but in our house we do feed the cocos so i'm going to give my dogs a little bit of the hot pot soup i'm going to put some quinoa down first and i am not a dog expert i just love my dogs and i feed them food i'm going to add a little bit of the soup on top so i'm just going to choose some things that i think that they would like and i definitely want to get some of this broth on there which they really love and i'm going to get a little piece of chicken for them and cut it up you