It is said that Royal Pot was created by Mrs. Yu, the wife of Bi Qiang who was Ministry of Justice, Works, Revenue and Personnel of Shitai County in Ming Dynasty. One day, the emperor suddenly came to the ministry‘s house for dinner. Mrs. Yu prepared a feast of fat things and especially cooked a Hui style hot pot, and the emperor enjoyed this dish very much and called it Royal Pot after he learned it was cooked by Mrs. Yu herself.

(Photo/ah.gov.cn)

One Yipin Pot is divided into four layers or six layers, which depends on the conditions, but no matter how many levels, meat dishes are on the top, and vegetarian dishes would be put down. Generally for egg dumplings, tofu bao (a kind of food which containing tofu, meat, and vegetables etc.), braised pork, dried beans or radish from top to bottom. When cooking, it needs to use a pig iron pot, firstly, stir fried the braised pork and cook it to half-cooked, then spread the vegetarian dishes into the pot in turn, add the soup juice, boil to high heat and then simmer slowly, and scoop its soup juice into the pan noodles from time to time, so that the ingredients can fully absorb it, heating it to two to three hours. It will be ok when the soup is dry, the dish is crisp, thick and mellow.

Ingredients:

Dried bamboo shoots, flesh lumps, fried bean curd, pork balls, bean threads, spinach, lily flower.