Sponge gourd by any name a tasty addition

It was back in January that a volunteer at Hawaii’s Plantation Village wrote to Crave about the edible sponge gourd growing in the garden at the Okinawan house. “The vines in the garden are bursting with hechima!” she wrote.

Sponge gourd (“hechima” in Japanese) is luffa (or loofah), the dried, scratchy, porous sponge used for exfoliating in the bath. Who knew you could eat that stuff?

Turns out, the young fruit is perfectly edible — delicious, actually — and is in fact consumed around the world. When cooked, it releases lots of water and has the tender consistency of cooked eggplant. In Hawaii’s multiethnic community, the gourd has many names: hechima, “kabatiti” in Ilocano, “patola” in Tagalog, “sequa” in Chinese and “nabera” in Okinawan.

The species growing at the Plantation Village is a rarity in Hawaii. It looks like a cross between a zucchini and a cucumber, with a smooth, striped green surface. But another species known locally as sequa, with a hard, ridged exterior, is readily found here in ethnic and farmers markets.

Turns out Eileen Yoshimoto grew up eating the smooth gourd — calling it nabera — as a child on Okinawa. Yoshimoto’s husband, Shigeru, is a garden volunteer at the Plantation Village. When he started there, he recognized the nabera and took some home for his wife. Since then she has earned a reputation at the village for cooking ono Okinawan dishes. She agreed to teach me a simple nabera preparation with tofu and pork.

Though Shigeru still occasionally supplies his wife with nabera, more often she heads to Chinatown, where she discovered a singular shop near Maunakea Marketplace that brings it in. It’s among the tiny markets in the area with no discernible name on its storefront.

Because it could be difficult for shoppers to track down this shop-with-no-name, Yoshimoto tried the more widely available sequa — adding a few to her pot on our cooking day to test it as a substitution. Happily, we found the flesh of the two varieties to be indistinguishable.

There is a difference in preparation, however: Sequa’s tough skin requires peeling with a knife, while the smooth skin of nabera is easily removed with a vegetable peeler.

Peeled nabera should be soaked in cold water before cooking to prevent the flesh from turning brown, but sequa stays green, Yoshimoto said.

Because the tofu will be browned in oil, it’s important to drain excess water well. An easy technique is to place the tofu in a colander, cover with paper towels and place a couple of canned goods or other weight on top. In 20 or 30 minutes it’s ready for the pot.

Yoshimoto’s dish is ethnic comfort food, warm and soupy with a subtle sweetness from the nabera and a soulful, umami broth. The tofu pieces, broken off by hand rather than sliced, absorbs the flavorful broth well. When I made the dish at home, I added Japanese shoyu, which is saltier than most local counterparts. I liked the added punch it gave to the broth. Another umami idea, from Yoshimoto: Add a bit of miso.

As for the meat component, Yoshimoto said she regularly makes the dish with Spam or bacon. But on the day I visited, she topped her nabera with Okinawan pork belly she had premade — heavenly. At home I quickly stir-fried slices of thin pork chops. I must say, while they could not possibly equal Okinawan pork belly, they were still pretty good.

This dish is a keeper, one that I’m adding to my dinner rotation.

Nabera with Pork and Tofu

• 5 medium nabera or sequa
• 2 cups meat of your choice (suggestions: pork slices, bacon, Spam, precooked pork belly)
• 3 tablespoons oil
• 1 block firm tofu, well drained
• Salt, to taste
• 3 tablespoons shoyu
• 2 teaspoons hondashi
• 1 teaspoon cornstarch or miso
• 2 stalks green onion, chopped

Peel nabera/sequa, cut diagonally into 1-inch thick pieces. If using nabera, soak in cold water 15 minutes, then drain.

If meat is not precooked, stir-fry in pot then set aside.

Add oil to pot over medium-high to high. When heated, break off medium chunks of tofu and add to pan. Sprinkle with salt and brown.

Add nabera; toss or stir carefully to avoid breaking up tofu. Add shoyu and hondashi. Mix cornstarch with a little water and pour into pot, or add miso. Toss or mix gently.

Cover pot and cook 5 minutes. Taste broth and adjust seasoning. Cook another 2 minutes, add green onions and cover to cook several more minutes, or until vegetables are cooked but still firm. Don’t overcook or nabera will get soggy.

In the meantime, if necessary, warm up meat.

When nabera is done, remove pot from heat, add meat and serve hot. Serves 6.

Approximate nutritional information, per serving (not including salt to taste): 300 calories, 18 g fat, 3.5 g saturated fat, 40 mg cholesterol, greater than 1,000 mg sodium, 13 g carbohydrate, 4 g fiber, 5 g sugar, 23 g protein.

Is there a cooking technique you’d like explained? Email food editor Joleen Oshiro, joshiro@staradvertiser.com. Nutritional analysis by Joannie Dobbs, Ph.D., C.N.S.