Name: Hot Pot Soup Base
Ingredients: 1 tbsp of sugar; 3 pieces of star anise; 4 pieces of bay leaves; 6 pieces of white cardamom; 1 big stock of cinnamon use scissors to cut it small; 1 tsp of clove; 2 tbsp of Gancao; 1/3 cup of Sichuan peppercorn; 1 tbsp of fennel seed; 1 tbsp of cumin seed; 1/3 cup of chili flake; 1.5 cup of red chilies; 3/4 cup of garlic; 1/2 cup of ginger; 1/3 cup of face heaven chilies; 1 cup of Dou ban Jiang; 1/3 cup of spicy fermented soybean paste; 1 tbsp of salt; 5 cup of canola oil + 1 cup of lard

Instructions

Grind all the dry spices into powder (4 pieces of bay leaves, 3 pieces of star anise, 6 pieces of cardamom, 1 big stock of cinnamon, 2 tbsp of Gancao, 1/3 cup of Sichuan peppercorn)
Put the spice powder in a bowl, then add in 1 tbsp of fennel seed, 1 tbsp of cumin seed, 1/3 cup of chili flake. Mix everything together until well combined.
Besides the dried ingredients. You also need to grind some wet ingredients (1.5 cups of red chili Mei ren jiao, 3/4 cup of garlic, 1/2 cup of ginger, 1/3 cups of face heaven chili)
Put the chili mixture and the ground spices in the wok. Add 1 cup of Dou ban Jiang, 1/3 cup of fermented soybean paste. Stir this on low heat until well combined. Add 1 tbsp of sugar and 1 tbsp of salt, keep mixing everything.
At the same time, get another pot. Heat up 5 cups of canola oil and 1 cup of lard. Traditionally this is done with pure beef tallow. But I don’t like that much animal fat so I just did a little change. You can use pure canola oil, it is fine. Bring the oil to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
Then pour the hot oil into the wok. You should see it is bubbling a lot. That will wake up most of the flavor. And be careful, it is safer to do it in batches.

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