Recipe: Chinese Fondue

Chinese fondue is first and foremost a shared meal, where everyone cooks what they want in the hot broth and chats for an hour. Historically from China of course, it arrived in the West in the 1960s, first in Switzerland with cheese, then as a meat version with boiling broth. Here it's the Asian variant, where you cook sirloin, veal liver, chicken and shrimp in just three minutes in a consommé that must stay at a gentle simmer. It's a family dish, perfect when it's cold outside and you have people at the table, especially November to February. The meats must be very fresh, sliced paper-thin the day before or that morning. Veal liver pale in colour, shrimp impeccable, firm fish that won't crumble during cooking. Plan your shopping with a good butcher. For wine pairings, it's straightforward: chilled Chinese beer as suggested, or a light dry white like Sancerre or Chablis. Avoid reds, they take up too much space against the subtlety of the broth. For seasonings, arrange everything around the table: various mustards, chilli sauce, nuoc-mâm, rice vinegar, Guérande sea salt. Everyone seasons their bowl as they like, that's the whole point. The rest of the meal builds around it: fresh salad of watercress, spinach and coriander roughly chopped, Chinese noodles blanched just before. At the end, when everyone has finished eating, the hostess cooks the noodles for three minutes in the broth, then everyone breaks their soft-boiled egg to warm it inside. It's simple, warm, unpretentious.