Sichuan Konjac Tofu

Sichuan Konjac Tofu

　　A plate of spicy and flavorful konjac is the taste of home for people from Sichuan. Eating authentic konjac tofu can also make one feel as if they’ve returned home.

　　Making konjac tofu isn’t complicated; first, it needs to be washed and the skin removed. Then it’s cut into small pieces, and water is added at a ratio of 1:8 before being placed on a grinding stone for grinding. After repeated grinding, the konjac turns into a semi-solid, paste-like mixture.

　　By this time, a kitchen stove is already lit, and the ground konjac is placed in a firewood pot along with a bit of lime water. It is then boiled over high heat, and after two hours, the konjac will undergo a magical transformation.

　　In Sichuan, the most common way to prepare konjac tofu is to stir-fry it vigorously with pickled vegetables and chili peppers, giving the humble konjac an instantly rich and appetizing color.

　　Konjac is highly nutritious, containing a large amount of glucomannan, which has been recognized by the World Health Organization as one of the top ten health foods. In addition to being rich in glucomannan, konjac also contains various vitamins and minerals.

　　As the “National Hometown of the Konjac Industry,” Anzhou District is home to five konjac planting professional cooperatives, 32 primary and refined konjac processing enterprises, five relatively strong konjac processing enterprises, and three leading agricultural industrialization and refined processing enterprises. These enterprises have an annual processing capacity of 100,000 tons of fresh konjac, process 3,500 tons of refined powder year-round, and generate nearly 200 million yuan in output value.