Recouperating by Shabu-ing

After feeling a little guilty eating yummy rich food for the past week, the hubs and I (more like me...) decided that we should have shabu-shabu (Japanese steamboat), shabuz for short, for dinner this weekend. I love this Japanese version of steamboat. The more authentic ones start with plain water and by the end, the water has absorbed all the nutrients and flavours from the meats and vegetables which was cooked. I find it difficult these days to go back to eating Chinese steamboat *grin*

I'm proud to say that after many attempts, we've managed to perfect our shabuz recipe for 2 (this is only because it didn't quite work out when my brother-in-law came over for dinner a week ago). I figured that if we doubled the ingredients that we should double the water, but it didn't quite work that way. It's back to the drawing board for shabuz meals for more than 2.

Anyways, in order to perfect the shabuz, we had to purchase a new steamboat pot. The current steamboat pot which we have was too big (it's the usual pot on an induction cooker fit to feed 6 to 8 people). And just for the 2 of us, it was a little difficult to make it a shallow cooker, we'd have to keep adding water and end up diluting the soup that has already absorbed the food which we cooked. So the hunt for a smaller pot started and over the past Lunar New Year we found and bought a pot for 2. It's a cute little red pot and I love it! It's basically a bowl on top of a hot plate. Ingenious! For each meal, it takes one litre of water without any need to add more water throughout the meal. The heat setting is adjustable and at the end of the meal, the soup is reasonably thick and infused with the essence of the meats and vegetables and is lapped up by the both of us!