Hello everybody, so today I'm going to be talking about
luffa we all know about luffa right, but did you know luffa is a fruit?
Yes, this actually is a fibrous portion of a fruit that is related to
cucumbers and squashes and gourds and stuff like that. Here is the typical
luffa fruit. This is I believe its luffa aegyptica
Egyptian cucumber is another name for it and it's used as a vegetable in
India and China and
some other parts of the world and Vietnam I think is pretty popular and it's used kind of like you would use a
like a squash like or like a zucchini or something. There is another luffa species that's quite common and that is
this one right here. This is luffa acutangula. Luffa acutangula
Luffa aegyptica
This one as you see is much bigger. That has nothing to do with it. These things grow
really really big and these things grow even bigger, but you can't eat them
when they are fully ripe you got to pick them unripe.
So this one was picked a little bit earlier than this one apparently
so if you let these fruits grow all the way then they will dry out and what's left over
is the
the sponge but I'm not here to talk about. How useful
luffa is as a bath sponge. I'm here talk about how useful it is as
something to eat. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to
prepare these. First, I'm going to try them raw and then I'm gonna cook something out of it.
I should mention there are like a bunch of other luffa species according to Wikipedia
They say the three main species are these two and also
Luffa operculata
also known as wild luffa. I thought those might be the only three but then I looked online
and I saw a website that lists like 50 of them
so there's a ton of different luffa species as far as I know but
these two are the most common ones.
So the thing with this one is that it's got these very tough
ridges on it and these things are hard
so a lot of I mean, I think you can eat them, but because they're pretty tough
a lot of people what they'll do is they'll
shave them off. So that's what I'm gonna do. This one does not have that issue doesn't have those ridges. It's nice and smooth
It's relatively
soft
So it's more like a cucumber
This is the ridged one
The Chinese okra, this one is just the plain
smooth luffa, so I'm going to start first with the smooth one.
Yeah, normally
normally you don't eat this raw. Okay, you do cook it.
I don't think people ever really eat this raw, but it's not gonna kill me or anything.
It's just probably not going to be super good. I'm imagining it's gonna be bitter
but still I wanna compare these see what they taste like raw.
It's fine
but it tastes like an unripe vegetable that you should be cooking it tastes kind of like
I guess a little bit like unripe
zucchini like raw zucchini but earthier.
Here's the ridged one
This one's a little bit sweeter.
A little bit milder
and It's got more of like
like a cucumber type flavor. Tastes like zucchini still but a sweeter milder
cucumber-ish zucchini.
In the pan, I've got some vegetable oil going and
I'm going to take a little bit of garlic
and let that just brown a little bit.
While my garlic is heating up, I'm going to
chop these. I'm going to attempt to roll cut
which
means that you cut a slice you move it about 180
degrees and then you can do it again
and
I've never done this before so feel free to make fun of me in the comments for it.
But I guess the idea is that it gives it kind of like a little bit of a funky shape to it.
Totally messing this up but
Yeah, it's recommended on a lot of websites to roll cut so figured I'd at least give it a try.
While i was attempting to roll cut, I kinda
overcooked my garlic so that's great
and i threw in these
I threw in the luffa and
it splattered and
it just like kinda like burned my arm. Oh
Guys just a reminder, this is not a cooking channel. This is a fruit channel. Just cooking this
so I can get I an idea of what it taste like
but I'm gonna have to keep in mind the fact that the garlic did get a little burned.
It's okay. It's gonna be fine.
Now this does not cooked for very long. You just cook it so it's like
like fork tender. Should just be like a minute or two
To get these the way that I want them
These are getting a little golden on the edges so it is time to plate.
Everybody loves plating. This is everybody's favorite part. Doing it with one hand, by the way
All right, let's do it.
Oh Yeah!
Look at that.
Look at that plate.
Beautiful. Okay, so let's cook this one now. I'm gonna do the same exact thing
Oh yeah!
Look at that plate. That is just like a work of art. Look at that.
No no, It needs something. It needs a little something
There we go. Beautiful! Ready to be served. I'm gonna sprinkle a little salt on it.
Okay, so let's do it
and if you've been watching a lot of my videos you may have recalled me saying at some points that I don't like zucchini.
I don't like squash don't really care for it. So I'm probably not going to like this
But again, not a cooking channel a fruit channel
so let's just try to I'm going to put aside the fact that I'm probably not going to like this.
I just discuss what it tastes like to give an idea of what that flavor is
so
blah! So, I'm gonna start with the Chinese okra the ridged one
This kind of tastes like zucchini, but it's a little bit milder
little bit sweeter.
There's a dog barking outside
like a very mild
slightly earthy slightly green squash taste I think like on its own
this is kind of like that's like a vegetable let your parents make you eat just kind of like eww like
boiled broccoli
You know like you don't that's this is not like a good way to prepare it
like if you want the food to taste really good in my opinion
I think this needs a lot of spices.
It needs some more vegetables mixed in too and stuff like that make like a stew out of it or something.
That would be really good. On it's own like this though, It's fine. It's a
fairly mild taste so it would mix well with other
kinda like hearty vegetables and the texture is a little bit a little bit slimy a little bit soft
so
It reminds me a little bit like the texture you'd get from like a cooked eggplant.
I guess not too dissimilar from like cooked squash like yellow squash or zucchini
Okay, so here is the smooth variety.
When they're raw the ridged one feels very tough because those like little ridges give it like some
structural support the smooth variety, when you cook it. It's a little bit firmer fleece in the case of the ones that I have
the flavor is
earthier
but not as earthy as it was when it was raw if you were to take
zucchini and potato and kind of cross them together that earthiness.
Actually, it's pretty good that's that's fine.
So it's got a little bit more complexity to it than the ridged variety. Not one is better than the other
It depends I think what you want to do with it.
I think the smooth variety in this case is something that I can see more as like a side dish
just as it is just because it would give you a little bit more flavor.
The rigid variety is
too bland. It's too ordinary. I think like if you gave that to someone as a side dish. They'd eat it. It's not terrible
but it's not exciting
but if you were to take that and mix it with other vegetables, then you're good to go.
I think both of these would be a lot better if you're gonna mix it with something
A lot of the preparations I see online call for egg. It would go well with eggs
I think. It would bulk it up a little bit especially like as a side dish to something that has more flavor.
I think that would work pretty well.
What I'm gonna do with this is probably
cook it with some eggs and some rice and like put some more spices in it and I think I'd be happy with it.
So I think that's all I have to say about this. You know, it's not the most like incredible tasting thing, but it's fine.
It's totally okay. I will eat this mixed with other things and I'll be happy with it
but the most important thing about this what makes it really interesting is this. You can clean yourself with it.
I love it when fruit has another besides just eating, you know
there's soak berries where you can like you could probably use it with this
you can clean yourself with soap berry fruit and a luffa fruit sponge and
We have that ability mother nature provides us with
cleansing products as well as cleansing sponges and that's something that's pretty interesting to me.
So I kind of love stuff like this. So although I'm not blown away from eating this, It's
totally fine and I learned something. I learned what the fruit that this comes from tastes like and that's kind of cool to me.
So I hope you enjoy watching me eat this thing. Hope you learned something and
I'll see you next time.
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