Is Loach Diamond Tofu really just a legend?

This is the only picture of the "Loach Diamond Tofu" dish on the Internet, but there are still heavy traces of artificial insertion.

No matter which method is used to cook it, it is best to starve the loach for about 7 days to vomit out the dirt and impurities in the body.

As long as the water temperature reaches above 30℃, loaches will die quickly.

Loach is rich in protein and multiple vitamins and is known as "water ginseng". If you often watch Korean dramas, you will often see scenes of Koreans giving loach soup to pregnant women.

Among all loach dishes, the most legendary is "loach drilled tofu" - tofu and loach are placed in a cold water pot.

As the water temperature continues to rise, the loach is heated Tang Zhong was so anxious that he had nowhere to hide, and finally got into the cold tofu, but he still couldn't escape the fate of being cooked. Therefore, this dish is also called "Cao Chuan Borrowing Arrows", "Diao Chan Tofu" (Dong Zhuo means loach, Diao Chan means tofu), "Han Palace Hidden Beauty" and so on.

"Loach drilled tofu" is said to have originated in the Zhoukou area of ??Henan Province. It is said that a fisherman named Xing Wenming sold the big loach, but no one cared about the smaller ones, so he had to take it home and cook it himself. One time, in order to adjust the taste and innovate, he simply cooked the small loaches and tofu together, and added onions, ginger, garlic and other condiments. When he opened the pot, he found that the small loaches had all got into the tofu.

The biggest advantages of this soup dish are its unique appearance and the fusion of animal protein from loach and plant protein from tofu. It is delicious and the soup is greasy and fragrant.

Everything sounds reasonable. The loach cannot stand the heat of the water and bumps around in the pot, so it will naturally choose to get into the cold tofu. I checked online and found that many regions such as Eastern Hubei, Henan Zhoukou, and Jiangxi say this is a local specialty, and the recipe is quite impressive. However, the problem is that there is no photo of the finished dish, let alone a video to prove it. There is no record in any of the major Chinese cuisine genealogies.

Can a heated loach really dig into tofu? Words are unfounded, but experiments are proof. "Express Time·Curiosity Laboratory" will do a kitchen experiment for you to see.

The loach health center has been open for 4 years

The loach has almost never gotten into tofu

The loach dishes in most restaurants and hotels in Hangzhou are mostly salt and pepper, Braised in two kinds, we finally found a health restaurant on Wangjiang Road that specializes in loach dishes - "Little Bird Loach". The owner Pi Weiqiang said that the store has been open for 4 years, and the loach got into the tofu. It was just an accident. I've been there once (I can't remember how many loaches I got in), "If one of the 10 loaches gets in, you're extremely lucky." Boss Pi was happy to do this experiment together.

Experimental props: a pot, a thermometer, a pound of fresh loach (the most common variety on the market), and a few pieces of rough-tasting flat tofu.

Boss Pi said that no matter which method you use to cook loach, you must first starve the loach for about 7 days to let the loach vomit out all the dirt and impurities in its belly. If you want to make the loach dying of hunger still have If you have the strength to get into the tofu, you have to feed it with egg white to replenish your strength.

In the kitchen of "Little Bird Loach", we first put the loach and tofu into the pot together, add cold water and turn on a simmer. Three minutes later, the water temperature rose to 20°C, and the loach was jumping around in the pot without taking the tofu seriously.

After a while, the water temperature rose to 30°C, and the loaches began to turn over and die; when the water temperature rose to 40°C, all the loaches in the pot were scalded to death. I took out the tofu and looked at it. No loaches got in either.

We burned three pots in a row, but they all ended in failure.

Boss Pi said that many diners who came to the store in the past did want to order "loach stewed tofu", but they had no idea, so they all tried "loach stewed tofu" to "prevarice". After a long time, the diners also Just give up.

The secret recipe of the Qigong master is not reliable

"Curiosity Lab" asked the audience for help, asking for good ways to make loaches dig into the tofu. On October 20, 70-year-old Uncle Guo, who lives in Jiayuan, Xixi, called and said that he had an old book at home that might be helpful.

This book is called "Qigong Drug Bait Therapy and Treatment of Deviation Surgery". It was written by Zhou Qianchuan (1908-1971, a representative figure of Qigong in my country). The traditional Chinese characters are arranged vertically and are old and yellow. Printed on the back of the book: Shanxi People's Publishing House, first published in August 1959, priced at 1.4 yuan, available in all Xinhua Bookstores.

This is a traditional Chinese medicine diet therapy book, in which the dish "Loach Diamond Tofu" has been given an elegant name - "Yuhan Ni", because the tofu is as white as jade and the loach is as gray and black as mud. Come. Uncle Guo said that he bought this book in Zhoushan when he was young, but he had never made the "Yuhan Ni" dish.

The method of "Yuhan mud" is: add salt to the flat tofu and boil it in the pot for 5 minutes to remove the astringency of the brine; then ice it with cold water and put it in the pot together with the loach; when the loach is put in the pot, , salt, ginger, pepper and other seasonings are mixed evenly, add them at the same time, and cook slowly over low heat. The book also said that a hungry loach will first eat the soup continuously, and when the fire gets higher, the loach will get into the tofu.

The biggest difference of "Yuhan Ni" is that the tofu must be boiled with salt first.

Boss Pi said that this makes sense. After adding salt to tofu, the toughness will be strengthened and it will not break easily.

We followed the same method, but when the loach was put into the pot with the seasonings, perhaps due to the irritation of the seasonings, the loaches started jumping around before the fire was lit; when the water temperature rose to about 40°C, all the loaches in the pot were completely cooked. Even after death, not one of them got into the tofu.

Add vinegar to the water

Loach will die faster

In the past two days, the audience still provided us with many homespun methods. One of them, Mr. Teng, said , the key is to add vinegar to the cold water, so that the loaches will take the initiative to get into the tofu.

Mr. Teng’s specific method is to put the loach in the pot without turning on the fire, add water, put the tofu in the middle of the pot, and then pour rice vinegar along the wall of the pot.

Mr. Teng repeatedly warned that when adding vinegar, you must pour it in circles from the outside in, so that the loaches will be driven into the tofu by the vinegar.

However, after pouring in the vinegar, the loach still reacted very strongly, jumping around and stirring up the circles of vinegar. What's even more tragic is that the loaches were so tossed in the vinegar water that by the time they reached the warm water, each one had already died from exhaustion, and the death rate was obviously faster than other methods.

We were unwilling to fail like this. We changed the soft tofu, old tofu, small loach, and large loach more than 10 times in turn, but the result was still the same.

"Boiled frogs in warm water" are just a legend

Judging from the experimental results, "loach drilled tofu" may really be just a legend.

Boss Pi said that a chef like him who specializes in making loach can only say that making loach tofu depends entirely on luck; as for adding salt, vinegar and other condiments into the pot with the loach, these methods It is even more unreliable and will only speed up the death of the loach.

"Loaches are very afraid of heat and will die if the temperature is slightly higher;

"There are not many wild loaches now, most of them are artificially bred. After 7 days of starvation, they will die. , even if they are fed egg white, their vitality is still not as strong as the wild ones, especially in autumn and winter, when loaches begin to enter a 'dormant' state again.

"In addition, the softness and hardness of the tofu are very important. The old tofu is too hard to drill in, and the built-in tofu is too soft and falls apart when touched."

Boss Pi said seriously: Judging from his 4 years of experience specializing in cooking loach, this dish is really just a legend. Which restaurant can really produce this dish? Most of them are killed loach artificially inserted into the tofu.

How to make loach drilled tofu

Ingredients

1. The bought loach should be raised for 2 days to spit out mud. The loach stall I bought raised it I kept it for several days, so I put a few drops of cooking oil into the loach's basin and kept it for only half a day; the loach was slippery and difficult to wash, so I washed it several times;

2 .Put an appropriate amount of oil in the wok, and when it is slightly hot, add minced onions and garlic.

3. Stir-fry until fragrant, add a spoonful of chili sauce, and stir-fry evenly;

4. Add water to the pot and bring to a boil over high heat.

5. Pour the washed loach into the pot and cover the pot immediately, so that the loach is covered with red oil;

6. Stew until the soup is reduced, add salt to taste, sprinkle with coriander, and serve;

Tip: The purchased loach should be raised for one to two days, and the mud can be vomited. Put some vegetable oil in the water and spit out the mud quickly

I used to eat it when I was a child. Our family caught a lot of loaches. My mother kept the loaches in clean water for half a month and had to change the water every day. In the end, the water was clear. Now you can make loach tofu. Put cold water in the pot, put the tofu in, and then put the loach in. Be sure to cover the pot, and then start to heat the fire. Start with low heat, and slowly turn to medium heat. Stew for half an hour to forty minutes, just add some salt and seasoning.

Puji has answered this question and thinks it is impossible for loaches to get into tofu. He has actually done it several times without success. . After the answer was posted, many netizens left comments, some praising, some criticizing, and some giving examples to illustrate how to do it. Puji really gained knowledge. After verification, this dish really exists and is commonly made in some rural restaurants in the south of the Yangtze River. Puji will tell you a successful way to let your loach get into the tofu properly.

The key to this dish is that live loaches get into the tofu and then stewed into a dish. Grasping three key points will ensure success:

1. The tofu must be processed first. Buy tender tofu that is more than ten centimeters square and put it in the freezer of the refrigerator to freeze thoroughly. Take it out to thaw, squeeze out the water, and then put it in the refrigerator for later use.

⒉ Loach must be the fry that was born that year. Loach lays eggs in early summer and grows into shape in autumn, about the thickness of the head of a chopstick, so this dish is only available in autumn. If you buy loaches and raise them without feeding them, they will have all the dirt in their stomachs after three days. You can crack an egg to feed them before cooking.

⒊The heat must be accurately controlled. Use traditional cone-bottomed iron pots and wood-burning stoves. Put the loach and cold water into the pot. Heat a low fire in the stove, so small that the flame cannot touch the bottom of the pot. When the water reaches more than 20 degrees, when the loach starts to get irritable, take out the tofu from the refrigerator and put it in the pot. Continue to maintain a low heat until all the loaches have penetrated into the tofu. Add onion, ginger, sweet wine, salt and a spoonful of stock. Bring to a boil over high heat, then turn to medium heat and simmer for 30 minutes.

The water in the pot should cover the tofu. After stewing, add coriander, crushed pepper, and a small amount of oil, put the pot into a pot, and serve it as a finished dish.

1. Keep the purchased loach in clean water for 2-3 days, change the water 4-5 times a day, and let the loach spit out impurities

2. Take out the loach

3. Use 80-degree water to scald it to remove surface mucus.

Don't scald it with boiling water, as it will burn the skin.

4. A piece of tofu, cut into rectangular pieces

5. Put the water in the pot and add the loach. You should use stock. I don’t have it today, so I will use cooked pork belly. , cut into a few large pieces, so that the cooked loach will not be burnt and the soup will taste better.

6. Put the water in the pot and put the loach tofu in it too

7. Put all the shredded ginger, pepper, dried chili and salt

8. Simmer for 10 minutes

9. Add rice wine

10. Continue to simmer for 5 minutes

11. Stewed loach tofu soup

12. Add a little chives to enhance the flavor, and add some colored peppers to match the color. Pour a few drops of sesame oil on it

Tip never use boiling water when blanching loach, otherwise the skin and flesh will burst

To make this dish, you first need to remove the mucus from the loach. Otherwise, your food will be inedible when it is cooked. The second thing is the dirt on the loach. Since it is not slaughtered, it needs to be removed. (The big ones must be slaughtered. Do you want to eat the internal organs? Once slaughtered, they can only be drilled manually, so choose smaller loaches.) Or, I will tell you that if you put tofu after the water temperature comes up, the loaches will scurry around due to the heat. Will run out.

A few small loaches, a piece of soft tofu, and some green vegetables can be added as appropriate. Chicken powder, MSG and salt, cooking wine, vinegar (for washing the loaches), white wine (you may not use it, it depends on your preference), green onions, ginger, star anise, and then you need to have a big pot that can prevent the loaches from running out. class.

Choose a loach about the size of your little finger, raise it for a period of time, vomit out the dirt in its stomach, change the water several times, then add white wine to soak it (this is purely a personal preference), and then add salt and vinegar Wash (some people will feel itchy when touching iron rods and yam, you can also wash it with salt and vinegar), heat the pot and add water, add tofu and then put the loach (do not put it in hot water, just like eel to make panlong eel, if you put it directly You are the one who is unlucky in the hot oil.) Cover the pot. When the water is hot, the loach will burrow into the tofu. When the loach is cooked, start adding seasonings. Add green onion and ginger to remove the fishy smell. Add an appropriate amount of salt, MSG, and chicken powder to make it salty and umami. , simmer the soup over low heat until it turns white, then take it out of the pot. If it is not white, you can add some pure milk, condensed milk, evaporated milk, etc. The chef should know what it is. You can also add some green vegetables and wolfberry as appropriate.

The above is my method. If you have other ideas, please share them and discuss them together

To make loach drill tofu, you need to rest the loach in clean water for a few days. The loach should be very small. Yes, the next step is to choose soft tofu. First put the tofu in the refrigerator and freeze it. Do not freeze it. Add cold water to the pot. Put the loach in it. Heat it up to about 15 degrees. Turn off the heat. Add the frozen tofu. The loach will become cold after being heated. It will naturally dig into the cold tofu. Just control the temperature when the loach digs into the tofu!

Preparation materials

A square piece of soft tofu

Ten loaches

Ginger

Green onion

An appropriate amount of chicken powder

An appropriate amount of salt

Cooking wine (preferably Fujian old wine)

First, put the soft tofu in the refrigerator to keep it fresh, making sure it is transparent Cool the heart

Heat a pot with oil, sauté the ginger and onion until fragrant, add cold water, and add the loach

Heat over high heat to about 20 degrees, take out the tender tofu from the refrigerator, and place it In the middle of the pot, the loach will not die because the water temperature is only about 20 degrees. It will only move around because the water temperature is high. Cover the pot.

The soft tofu is cold when it is taken out of the refrigerator, and the loach will dig into it to avoid the heat. This is the origin of the loach-drilled tofu.

After the water boils, simmer over low heat for about 15 minutes, add salt and chicken powder to taste, pour in a little cooking wine, sprinkle with chopped green onion and serve.

It is delicious and nutritious. You can usually make it for your children.

Follow the above steps and the success rate is 100%

I hope it can help you. If you need it, you can collect it!

Ingredients: 200 grams of loach, 500 grams of tofu, 1 green onion, 1 small piece of ginger, 15 tablespoons of stock, 1 teaspoon of pepper, 1 teaspoon of salt, and 1/2 teaspoon of MSG.

Steps: 1. Cut green onion into sections and pat loose ginger; wash the loach after resting for a few days; 2. Put cold water in the pot, turn on low heat, place the tofu in the middle of the pot, and place the loach in the pot. When the water in the pot is slowly heated, the loaches will burrow into the tofu; 3. After all the loaches have burrowed into the tofu, take out the tofu, put it in a soup bowl, fill it with broth, add salt, pepper, Ginger, green onion, MSG, steam for 15 minutes.

Alkali surface is the key! ! Place a funnel shallowly on the tofu, put the loach into the funnel, sprinkle a little alkaline flour on the loach, and the loach will burrow into the tofu!

What is the correct way to make loach with tofu? Can you really get into tofu? This is a question that many people are curious about! I am also very curious. In order to verify the facts, I have consulted a lot of relevant information and watched relevant videos and practices in the past few days. It’s empty talk, seeing is believing. Finally, my colleague was very curious and did a small experiment. What was the result? Don’t worry, let’s take a look at how to do it online first.

There are many netizens live broadcasting Loach Diamond Tofu, but none of them have succeeded.

But on a local TV channel in Fujian, the festival was called "I Love the Kitchen". In one of the episodes, I made the dish "Loach Drilled Tofu", and it was a success. I really got into it. It was incredible.

Are all netizens doing it incorrectly? What is the principle of loach drilling tofu? Let’s understand it first.

According to legend, there used to be a fisherman in Temple Street in Zhoukou Circle who made a living by fishing for shrimps all year round. From time to time, some loaches are caught, and the big ones are sold out, leaving no one to want the small ones. I gave up and had to eat it by myself. I was used to the usual way and got tired of it and wanted to try something new. So I bought tofu and cooked it with ginger and green onion. The loach was too small to handle, so I simply put it whole into the pot, put the tofu in whole, added ginger and green onion, and covered the pot. After a few minutes, I opened it and found that all the little loaches had got into the tofu, leaving only the tail outside. It was very strange and interesting. This method soon spread among the people and was given the interesting name "Loach Diamond Tofu".

The theory mentioned on the Internet is that when loaches are in hot soup, they are forced to flee in all directions by the heat. The tofu happens to be cold, so they all get into the cold tofu and hide to save their lives.

It sounds reasonable, but why can’t netizens succeed? Did the TV station succeed? Watching carefully, I discovered something fishy. The food program was airing at a critical moment when an advertisement was suddenly inserted. When the advertisement came back, the camera had already reached the seasoning stage. It looked like it was getting in, but in the blank stage, I wonder if the loach was stuffed with hands. Entering tofu, there is no way to know this.

In order to verify whether it is true, a colleague conducted an experiment using various methods taught on the Internet.

1. First put the loach into the water to spit out the dirt and leave it for a few hours.

2. Pour cold water into the pot, then add the loach and cold tofu in large chunks. (The instructions said that the tofu needs to be frozen, and that the tofu needs to be tender so that the loaches can get in, so I did it one by one.)

3. Turn on a simmer and boil the water to 20 ℃, (it is said that the water temperature is very important. If it is too hot, it will die before it reacts, so it cannot get in. I did the same.) Cover the pot, turn on the heat and cook slowly.

4. After a few minutes, there was no movement in the pot. It just started crackling. I thought the loaches couldn't stand the heat and would get into the tofu. When I opened the lid, I saw that they were all dead. Those who said they could succeed were all lies. Later, I wondered if there were some key places I sat wrong this time. I re-read the relevant instructions and tried it twice, but both ended in failure. So the Loach Diamond Tofu is really a legend and impossible!

In the end, it didn’t taste good at all. It was all one piece, one piece, and there was no flavor. Even if there were seasonings, there would be no flavor.