Partially frozen is significantly easier to cut into thin slices, since it holds its shape when you cut it.

• Let’s say you have meat that’s 100% frozen and you wanted to prepare hot pot on a Saturday. On Friday night, you’d move the meat out of the freezer and into the refrigerator overnight. In the morning, the meat should be partially thawed.
• If you were starting with fresh meat, then you’d place it in the freezer for about one to two hours.
• With both of these methods, the amount of time you freeze and thaw depends on your refrigerator and the thickness of your meat, but this is a good starting point.
• The meat should be still hard, but it should have some give. You’ll know if it’s still too frozen if you have a really hard time cutting it, in which case you can let it thaw for another hour or two. If the meat moves around when you try to cut it, then it’s too thawed, in which case you can freeze it again for another 30 minutes.

We didn't really cover this in too much depth in our videos, since there's not much to do other than wash the vegetables and to make any necessary cuts.

Nevertheless, it's important to wash and rinse your vegetables / mushrooms.

If you're using tofu (1 lb) (make sure it's firm), then cut it into cubes.

In this recipe, we're also using dried vermicelli noodles (4 oz), spinach (1 lb), Chinese broccoli (1 lb), seafood mushroom (0.50 lb), and king oyster mushroom (0.50 lb).

Before my dad starts cutting meat (or anything), he usually puts a towel underneath the cutting board so it's more stable. Speaking from decades of experience, this helped him avoid many cuts (but not all) in the kitchen.

Carefully cut each slab of meat - beef (2 lb), chicken (1 lb) - into 1-2 mm slices. We want thin slices of meat, since it's very important that these meats are able to cook quickly in our boiling hot pot.

As long as these meats have been partially thawed, these steps are pretty easy. We just need to make sure that our fingers are positioned correctly throughout the slicing, and particularly when we're looking to slice off the end of a piece.

We'll also be marinating our pork chop slices (1 lb). In an empty bowl, mix salt (0.50 tsp), baking soda (0.50 tsp), cornstarch (2 tsp), and water (1 tbsp), and then mix the pork chop with it.

This is much clearer in the video, but here are my dad's steps to preparing fresh squid (1.5 lb) for hot pot:

• Start to remove the innards by cutting down the middle with a knife. Pull out the entrails, the clear quill, and the purple membrane on the outside of the body.
• To save the tentacles, cut away the innards hanging underneath the eyes. We'll save the tentacles, and discard the rest.
• Score the interior/stomach side of the squid (not the exterior) by making diagonal cuts.
• Cut the piece into multiple smaller triangles.

The scoring helps the squid curl up into a beautiful horn when it's cooked in boiling water.

Then, we'll marinate the squid by placing mixing baking soda (0.50 tsp) and water (0.50 tsp) in an empty bowl, and then mixing the squid back in.

We'll cut about half of our tilapia fillets (1 lb) into ~1 cm slices, and marinate it with salt (0.25 tsp), cornstarch (1 tsp), water (2 tbsp), and white pepper.

Mix the seasonings in an empty bowl first, and then mix in the fish.

My dad's epic homemade fish balls deserve their own recipe page. Find it here!

You can use whatever ratio you want, but my dad was using about 8 oz of tilapia and 2 oz of shrimp in this video.

As an overview:

• Finely mince tilapia (0.50 lb), and beat it down to flatten it. Repeat.
• Finely mince shrimp (0.15 lb), and beat it down to flatten it. Repeat.
• Mix the tilapia and shrimp together, and flatten it.
• Finely chop cilantro (4 piece), green onion (4 piece), a rehydrated dried orange peel, and ginger
• Mix salt (1 tsp), sugar (1 tsp), white pepper (0.50 tsp), chicken bouillon (1 tsp), egg, cornstarch (3 tbsp) in a bowl.
• Add the fish paste and greens to the bowl, and mix thoroughly for 2-3 minutes.
• Add sesame oil (1 tsp), olive oil (1 tsp), mix for another 30-60 seconds.
• Take clumps of fish paste and slam it down on the bowl - this helps increase the pliability of the fish paste.
• Cover and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes

When it comes time to eat, we'll make each fish ball as we drop them in. We'll scoop up a ball of fish paste with a spoon, and then dunk it in the hot pot. It will be ready to eat in a little under a minute - soft, chewy, tender goodness and all.

All we need to do is peel our daikon (1.5 lb), cut it in half, and then cut it up into about 1 cm slices. We'll start boiling our hot pot broth with daikon, and then eat it at the end after it's soaked up all of the delicious flavors from the other foods.

For my dad's dipping sauce, we'll be mixing light soy sauce (4 tbsp), Shacha sauce (1 tbsp), olive oil (1 tbsp), sesame oil (0.50 tbsp), oyster sauce (4 tbsp), salt (1 tsp), sugar (1 tsp), chicken bouillon (1 tsp), chili oil (0.50 tsp), and boiled water (4 tbsp).

The boiled water helps the sauce stay fresh for longer.