Broth boils in a chimney copper pot as a hand swishes a slice of lamb through it with chopsticks, a plate is piled with rolled slices, and napa cabbage, glass noodles and a bowl of sesame paste stand beside it.
Copper pot, thin slices
Introduction
The northern hotpot: thin slices of mutton cooked in a copper pot and eaten with a dipping sauce.
Northern Chinese hotpot is the copper-pot tradition of the north: once the broth in a copper pot with a chimney is boiling, very thin slices of mutton are dipped in until cooked and eaten with a dipping sauce, usually alongside vegetables. The copper pot with its chimney has become an icon of Beijing. At the banquet for elders in 1785, in the Qianlong reign, the main things dipped were slices of mutton, chicken and roe deer. The spicy hotpot of Sichuan and Chongqing belongs to Sichuan-Chongqing Hotpot, and pots in which cooked ingredients are kept simmering belong to Charcoal Warming Pots.