You may have heard the name loofah as a natural sponge to clean the dish. When loofah dries out, it is so fibery and perfect for cleaning the dishes.
Today we are going to use the fresh loofah for the stew.
If you never had loofah before, we highly recommend you to try it out because once it is cooked, it will become so tender and will absorb all of the nice flavors in the stew just like a sponge does!
Most of the time you can find loofah at an oriental market. But in case you can’t find loofah near where you live, you can switch it to zucchini or squash instead!
Tofu Loofah Stew
Ingredients
Main ingredient
- 1 lb ground pork
- 1 pack tofu firm or medium
- 1 cup dried shiitake mushroom if you can’t find any, feel free to switch to other type of mushroom
- 1 loofah
- 2 tbsp canola oil
- 2 tbsp scallion
Pork seasoning
- 1 tbsp soy sauce
- 1/2 tbsp onion powder
- 1 tbsp oyster sauce
Stew seasoning
- 3 cloves garlic
- 1 tbsp oyster sauce
- 1 tbsp soy sauce
- chili peppers The quantity is depends on how spicy you like
- 1 tbsp corn starch
- ½ cup water
- sugar
- salt
Instructions
- Soak the dried shiitake mushroom in lukewarm water for 30 minutes. It is highly recommended to use the dried one (instead of the fresh one) here because it has so much flavor.
- For the tofu, remove the package and drain out the water. Use some paper towel to dry it, so it won’t splash oil once we heat it up in the pot.
- Cut the tofu into thin slices. Chop the loofah into 3 shorter sections so that it will be easier to peel off the skin. Chop the loofah into large chunks, set them aside for later use.
- For the soaked shiitake mushroom, gently rub them to remove the dust from the surface. And then cut them into thin slices. Remove the mushroom stems because it is hard to chew.
- Heat up a skillet with 1 tbsp of oil, add the ground pork in, and stir occasionally. Add a few slices of ginger to cook together, the ginger will make everything smell better in the pot.
- Once the pork changes color, add the shiitake mushroom. To season it, add about 1 tbsp of soy sauce, half tbsp of onion powder, 1 tbsp of oyster sauce, and a pinch of salt. Mix everything well and let the fat part from the pork slowly render.
- Remove the skillet from the stove and turn down the heat to low. In another pot, add 1 tbsp of oil, and you can also move around the pot to let the oil cover up evenly.
- Place the tofu slice all over the pot. Add the loofah over it and sprinkle with a pinch of salt. Lastly, cover everything in the pot with the ground pork mixture, and cover the lid let it cook for about 5 minutes over medium heat.
- While the stew is cooking, let’s prepare the sauce. We will need 3 cloves of garlic and chili peppers, chop them into small pieces and keep them in a bowl. In the same bowl, add 1 tbsp of oyster sauce, 1 tbsp of soy sauce, a pinch of sugar, and 1 tbsp of cornstarch. Lastly, add ½ cup of water and mix everything well.
- Add the seasoning mix into the pot, gently mix everything on the top and make sure that the sauce or ground pork is covering all of the tofu at the bottom (Just make sure that the tofu will get some flavor!) Cover up with the lid and let it cook for another 3 minutes.
- 3 minutes later, garnish with some chopped scallions, and voila, the tofu stew is done. Enjoy!
Video
Nutrition
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