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Help! How to store my unfinished mala spicy pot?

Help! How to store my unfinished mala spicy pot?

I love mala spicy pot (麻辣香锅)! 

Anyone else? 

I usually buy a big bowl of mala spicy pot to enjoy during the weekends. Albeit more than 60% of the pot is filled with vegetables, sometimes I end up over picking the amount of ingredients, ending up with a super huge bowl. I'm not complaining, but I'm currently watching my diet, so eating the same portion size will not cut it. 

This set me to wondering, how can I store my unfinished mala spicy pot? 

Can it even be stored, or should I just bite the (delicious yet "waist-full") bullet and finish it all?

So I set out on a very short online quest to find out. 

If you're living in a colder place, it's definitely alright if you leave it out for a day. If you're staying in a warm and humid place (such as Singapore), you definitely need to store it in the fridge. 

For me, what I did was to wait for the temperature hot mala spicy pot to cool down abit more, and transfer it from the takeaway box to a airtight container (I like to use glass containers or tupperwares) and leave it in the fridge. 

But, don't celebrate just yet, thinking you can simply reheat and have it 3 days later when your mala cravings hit you again. 

There are a few pointers to note when storing your unfinished mala spicy pot. 

Firstly, you'll need to acknowledge that while it can keep the 'freshness' of the mala spicy pot if you store it in the fridge, the texture and taste will definitely be compromised. 

Because the mala spicy pot is such a special dish which involves a lovely, fragrant burnt aroma after it's cooked, unfortunately the 'heat' or spice fragrance of the dish will decrease if it's kept over an extended period of time. 

Thus, if it were to be stored and consumed the next day, its distinctive fragrance will definitely be, to a certain extent, affected. 

Another important thing to note is that it's always good to finish off the mala spicy pot by the next day. Overnight vegetable dishes (especially those green leafy vegetables) will produce a lot of sodium nitrites, which might possibly be more harmful than beneficial to our health.  

When you're ready to consume the rest of your mala spicy pot the next day, just take note that it's best to reheat it by cooking it in the wok / pan before it can be eaten. While the microwave oven also might also be used to heat up the dish, sometimes the microwave oven doesn't do too well a job ensuring the dish is heated up evenly. 

Please don't try to eat the dish if it's not heated properly, because the dish contains a rich type of oil and fat which is not suitable for eating when it's cooled down, and it'll be extremely easy to cause indigestion and diarrhea after the meal! 

Yikes!

Ultimately, to save all of us (and the Earth) some trouble, it's still best to enjoy the meal freshly prepared, and to reduce any food wastage, it'll be great to adjust the food amount from the get-go. 

Waste not, waist not. :)


xoxo,

Janel

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