What is Ma La Xiang Guo
Ma La Xiang Guo (麻辣香锅) can be directly translated as “numbing spicy fragrant pot” and it’s often called spicy numbing stir fry pot or mala dry pot in the US. The dish features a medley of vegetables, tofu, meat, and seafood stir fried in a very rich and savory spicy sauce. It is often served in a giant bowl and shared family style over steamed rice. The sauce is truly the highlight of the dish because it brings all the ingredients together and tastes addictively good. Every restaurant has their own secret sauce. But they share some common characteristics – they’re all numbing, spicy, fragrant, rich and balanced. Ma La Xiang Guo originated in Chongqing and became very popular in China in the early 2000s. I remember thousands of Mala Dry Pot restaurants popping up, one on every corner. And it soon became one of my favorite destinations to grab dinner and a beer with colleagues after work.
How Ma La Xiang Guo is traditionally served
If you walk into a Ma La Xiang Guo restaurant in China, it might remind you of Chipotle. You will see arrays of ingredients neatly organized behind a counter covered with glass. To order, simply point out the ingredients you want in your pot. The waitress will start to add them into two big bowls, with vegetables and tofu in one and meat and seafood in the other. The price of the dish is measured by the weight. And you will choose the spice level you want – non-spicy, mild, medium, very spicy, or super spicy. Once it’s cooked, a giant bowl will be served in the center of the table, to share family style. Ma La Xiang Guo is getting quite popular in the US these days too, and I’ve tried it at some very good restaurants in New York. One of my favorites is Mala Project, a slightly upscale restaurant that serves authentic dry pot in a chic ambience. I also happened to find a gem, LaoMa Spicy, a more toned-down place near NYU. They serve Ma La Xiang Guo the traditional way and it is a bit cheaper.
What ingredients are used in Ma La Xiang Guo
You can pretty much use any ingredients you want and still make a great Ma La Xiang Guo. The key is to select various ingredients that have different textures and tastes, so the final dish is more balanced and fun to eat. Some of my favorite vegetarian ingredients include various Chinese greens, assorted mushrooms, things that add texture such as bamboo shoots and wood ear mushrooms, and tofu products. For the meat / seafood part, my guilty pleasure is grilled chicken wings and Spam. I also like to add sliced fish or fish balls into my dry pot. In China (and at very authentic restaurants in the US), you will find Ma La Xiang Guo menus offering a lot of innards. Ingredients such as chicken gizzard, beef tripe and tongue, and pork liver are commonly used and very popular.
Why this recipe
Making a great Ma La Xiang Guo is quite straightforward yet slightly tricky. You will need to: The biggest challenge is to make a great sauce without using 20 ingredients. And to stir fry so many ingredients together without overcooking any of them. After a lot of research and testing, I found out the great solutions to solve these problems:
Best Ma La Xiang Guo Sauce
The easiest way to create a great Ma La Xiang Guo sauce is to select a solid hot pot base, then add my two secret ingredients.
The hot pot base
If you really want to make things from scratch, you can use my homemade Sichuan Spicy Hot Pot Base. It contains less additives and no MSG.
Secret ingredients
I added Doubanjiang and Homemade Black Bean Sauce to the hot pot base. The result was amazing and truly like the dry pot you get at a restaurant! If you do not have homemade black bean sauce, a store-bought one works as well. Many Ma La Xiang Guo recipes use a lot of spices to make the dish more fragrant. However, if you use a good hot pot base, it should already be fragrant enough. I find this shortcut makes cooking extremely easy and the result outstanding.
My choice of ingredients and how to prepare them
The fun part of Ma La Xiang Guo is the variety of ingredients. I went a bit overboard in this recipe and used nine ingredients by separating them into seven groups. I prefer to use one or two ingredients from each group for texture, but it’s totally up to you to add or reduce the variety. This recipe requires the right amount of ingredients so your largest pan can hold them, and they will work perfectly with the sauce ratio. That’s why I created a list below, using cups and weight, to help you choose and swap out ingredients. If you prefer not to use certain ingredients, you can replace them with different ones. For example, use more leafy greens and skip the mushrooms.
How to make this dish vegetarian / vegan
To make a vegetarian or vegan Ma La Xiang Guo, simply skip the meat and replace it with some other ingredients you prefer. I highly recommend using a variety of tofu products if you can find them. For example, yuba sheets or yuba knots, tofu skin, fried tofu and smoked tofu. They add great texture and taste to the dish.
How to prepare the ingredients
I’ve tried stir frying ingredients separately and blanching them, and finally landed on blanching except for the meat and seafood. Since you will be using a super strong sauce, the vegetables will be flavorful enough without stir frying them individually. This streamlines and simplifies the process a lot. Plus you will consume a bit less oil at the end. For the meat and seafood, I do find that pan searing tastes much better. For fattier and higher quality meat, such as ribeye steak, chicken thighs, and shrimp, you can simply sear the meat. If using lean meat such as chicken breast, flank steak, or fish, I prefer to marinate them in a bit of Shaoxing wine and cornstarch so they will stay tender and juicy.
The formula to make Ma La Xiang Guo with any ingredient you have
To sum up, you should use about 6 to 7 cups of vegetables, and half a pound (225 g) of meat in total.
How to cook Ma La Xiang Guo
The process for cooking Ma La Xiang Guo is super easy. That’s it! The recipe looks a bit long but the process is quite straightforward. The result is so rewarding and tastes just like the restaurant version. You simply need to make some steamed rice and you’ll have a super delicious meal for four.
Afterthought
The beauty of Ma La Xiang Guo is, you can use pretty much any ingredients you like and the result is always good. I love to serve it at dinner parties because the pot includes so many things so everyone can find their favorites. It is also a great dish to make to clear out your fridge. I hope you like this one as much as I do!
Other dinner party recipes
Chinese Hot Pot Guide & How to Throw a Hot Pot Party at HomeShui Zhu Yu (Sichuan Boiled Fish, 水煮鱼)Baked Sichuan Chicken WingsKung Pao CauliflowerSichuan Roasted Whole Chicken
Lilja Walter was a part of the Omnivore’s Cookbook team and worked closely with Maggie to develop and test this recipe.
