In Asia there are many delicious shrimp recipes, meat dishes, general seafood, fish and other mains usually accompanied by aromatic rice and side dishes like vegetables or noodles. Their cooking methods differ from traditional western methods in general. Hot plunging, for example, involves plunging thin slices of fish or meat in water or broth which is kept at a rolling boil.
This type of cooking the ingredients can be done either in the kitchen or even at the dining table, using a hot pot, a type of charcoal burner, or a fondue cooker which burns spirit. Mongolian lamb hot pot is a famous dish where the guests each cook their own bite sized portions of food at the table, one mouthful after another – something like fondue bourgeoisie, and end up by drinking the tasty soup from the hot pot which by now has absorbed the flavor of all the pieces of meat which have been cooked in it. Drinking the soup is then the crowning glory of the meal.
Hot plunging is also widely used in Taiwanese cooking. It is easily done in the kitchen in a casserole; the meat or fish is very thinly sliced, seasoned and marinated and sprinkled with cornflour. The broth is usually a vegetable soup made by cooking some vegetables (both dried and fresh) in a meat broth base. This soup is then brought to a rolling boil and the sliced meat or fish is scattered through the liquid for not more than a minute of rapid boiling. The dish can be served in the earthenware or metal pan in which it was cooked or transferred to a large, flat, pre-heated bowl. As a rule the proportion of liquid to meat or fish should not exceed three to one or less, since the dish is not primarily meant to be a soup. This method of cooking is called in Chinese tang pao which, literally translated, means soup exploded. Alternately, for even lighter cooking, the boiling soup is simply poured over the seasoned foods in the serving bowl and served.
There are many fish, meat, vegetables and shrimp recipes that are truly delicious in Asian cuisine due to the varied methods they use for cooking them.
