What is the loofah plant?
The loofah is a herbaceous plant that has a dark green color, but it is bright in color at the same time. It has leaves that are somewhat rough in texture, and the shape of its leaf is similar to the shape of a heart. This plant is very similar to a plant called (Spotted), except that the difference between them is that the loofah plant Its color is uniform, but the stingray plant is a plant speckled with black spots. The loofah plant has a strange characteristic, which is that it is poisonous in all its parts. Despite this, there are people who are looking for this plant to become food for them, and this plant is very desired by many Palestinian farmers. When eating this plant, a person feels a severe burning sensation due to the presence of a burning substance that temporarily prevents the tongue from speaking due to the intensity of this substance, making it difficult for the person who ingested it to speak due to the intensity of its stinging!!
Preparing a loofah dish
Ingredients and amounts
- 250 grams of loofah (this plant is available in stores or can be picked from the mountains).
- A medium-sized onion.
- 500 grams of premium white flour.
- half cup of olive oil.
- a little water
- salt.
- A piece of fresh lemon
How to prepare
- First, we clean the loofah and pick the leaves from the stems. When cooking it, we use only the leaves. Then we chop it, put it in a deep bowl, put a little salt on it, and start rubbing it for a long time.
- After we finish rubbing the loofah leaves, we wash them well to remove dirt, salt, and some of the pungent flavor.
- After that, we cut the onion into squares, put it on the fire in a pot, and add an amount of oil to fry it with.
- After we fry the onions, we add the chopped loofah to it and stir it over medium heat for a while, then add a little water to it and leave it to boil for a while over low heat.
- After that, we knead the amount of flour with a little water, and then we start rubbing the flour between the palms of the hands, and the dough becomes crumbs in the form of threads of dough, and we continue doing so until we finish all the amount of flour.
- After we finish preparing the dough, we make sure that the loofah boiling over the fire is cooked so that we can continue cooking the dish.
- After the loofah is cooked, we place the previously prepared dough in the same pot that contains the loofah, and leave it to boil with the loofah, stirring carefully, until the dough is cooked.
- After the loofah dish with dough is cooked, we serve it in a bowl, squeeze a little lemon on it and serve immediately.
