How to make faux-fancy blowfish hotpot with cheap takeout sushi【SoraKitchen】

Our boss presents his revolutionary reuse of revolving sushi.

With the weather getting cold, our Japanese-language reporter P.K. Sanjun has found himself craving a taste of both luxury and nostalgia, in the form of fugu, or blowfish. Yeah, it’s a pricy craving, seeing as how fugu is generally a premium-priced seafood, what with it being poisonous unless it’s properly prepared and all, but when P.K. was growing up, his hard-working dad sometimes took the family out for a fugu dinner, feeling that the extra expense was worth it for his family.

In particular, P.K. has been craving fugu hotpot. Unfortunately, he’s not in a financial position to indulge those desires that often, so he’s been doing the next best thing: dropping hints to our boss, SoraNews24 founder Yoshio, about just how much he’d like to eat fugu hotpot, if only someone would treat him to some. Eventually, it seemed like Yoshio got the message, as he stood up from his desk and declared:

“Well, if you really want to eat it that badly, I’ll go get you some. I’m not some lame-ass boss who can’t even treat his employee to some fugu hotpot!”

And with that, Yoshio dashed out into the Tokyo night.

About an hour later, he came back through the door to the office. “Hey, don’t underestimate your boss, kid!” he called out to P.K., a proud smile on his face as he held up a takeout bag.

P.K. was deeply confused. He’d said he wanted hot pot, and instead Yoshio had come back with takeout from revolving sushi chain Hama Sushi.

“Hama Sushi has fugu nigiri-style sushi right now, so I’m gonna make just about the best hotpot anyone’s ever had,” Yoshio clarified. “Sit tight and stay hungry – it’ll be ready soon!” he promised.

P.K. wasn’t so sure that Yoshio’s mishmash cooking concept with ingredients sourced from a cheap conveyor belt sushi chain was going to satisfy his craving for gourmet hotpot, but before he could protest, Yoshio had already started preparing the broth, filling a pot with water and brining it to a boil, then adding shiro dashi (bonito stock with white soy sauce) and the 12 pieces of fugu sushi from Hama Sushi.

Once the broth was back up to a boil…

…he cracked in an egg and let it cook for a bit…

…and the Yoshio-style Fugu Hotpot was ready to eat!

Honestly, P.K. was very impressed with how it looked. Put this in a fancy ceramic bowl, and he’d totally believe this was something prepared by a restaurant chef, and not another of our boss’ possibly only half-baked ideas.

And not only does Yoshio-style Fugu Hotpot look pretty…

…it tastes pretty good too!

Hama Sushi uses two slices of fugu for each piece of sushi, so you actually get a pretty generous ratio of fish to rice. P.K. was a little worried that the vinegared rice used for sushi wouldn’t work well as hotpot/rice porridge, which is usually made with non-vinegared white rice in Japan, but this turned out to not really be an issue. The subtle sweet and sour notes of the vinegar weren’t very noticeable in relation to the broth’s stronger flavors of the bonito stock and fugu that had soaked into the rice while cooking.

The flavor may not have been quite as refined as the fugu hotpot served as a blowfish specialty restaurant, but considering how affordable the ingredients were (Hama Sushi charges just 165 yen [US$1.15] for two pieces of fugu sushi) and that Yoshio had spent less than five minutes cooking, Yoshio-style Fugu Hotpot felt like a serious bargain in terms of time and cost-performance.

Seeing P.K. enthusiastically munching away, Yoshio smiled too. “Being able to treat an employee to some fugu hotpot is all the satisfaction a boss needs, and I feel like we’ve learned a lot here. Ah, no need to than me! Adios!” he said as he gave a jaunty thumbs-up and strode out the door.

P.K. wasn’t sure whether or not that meant he could go home for the day too, but at least he had some good fugu hotpot to eat while he pondered that question.

Related: Hama Sushi
Photos ©SoraNews24
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