Lumpia, Part II

After my enlightening conversation with the pediatrician regarding the fact that one can hide veggies in food, *gasp*, I made more lumpia. Half meat, half veg in each one. I didn't let it marinate with enough soy sauce, though, so the flavor wasn't as strong as my previous batch.

And guess who noticed?

I slaved over these things for hours. And this time I did not cook the meat before stuffing and that made it so much easier. That might have had something to do with the flavor? You think? Well, His Royal Highness, the Mighty Refined Palate, Sir Sam, spit them out. Now I have 40 lumpia in my freezer.

Why, yes, Sam is learning the periodic table of elements. He has gotten far beyond the alphabet and really needs a challenge.

Lumpia - Take Two!

This time I got the recipe I wanted. Funny, though. So I asked the gal, R, for the recipe a couple of times. Really what I did was strongly hint that I would like to be invited to her house to learn to properly make lumpia in all its Filipino glory. I believe I said something like, "I would love to learn how to make these. Sam likes them so much. I think I would need a tutorial because yours are rolled so nicely, and they look hard." That's a pretty obvious fishing expedition, I think. But my hints went unrecognized. I then emailed R asking for the recipe. I got no response! I thought maybe it was a family recipe and she didn't want to, or was forbidden to, share it. I was going over all the reasons in my mind, really trying to steer clear from the high school-ish She just doesn't like you reason.

Then I talk to my friend EB, who is friends with R, goes out with R, socializes with R, has tea and crumpets with R and her husband, G, who is a lovely man, by the way. Turns out, R gave EB a strange photocopy of a recipe, written in haste, on binder paper. I assume that this was for me ... or maybe the original went to EB because she wanted it and she made me a copy because she knew I wanted it. Hmmmm. The piece of paper has the "recipe" plus parts of two other recipes and a scratched out shopping list. Huh? As I mentioned before, it's not really a recipe. There is an ingredients list and the instructions say three things: marinate overnight, cut the lumpia wrappers in half, keep a wet cloth over the wrappers to prevent drying out. What was missing from the instructions was whether or not I cook the meat before stuffing. I have a total of three lumpia recipes and two say to cook the meat, while R's says nothing. I do know that one can make potstickers and wontons without cooking the meat ahead of time. And I thought that not cooking it makes sense because R's lumpia are solid rods of meat and how could she get them to be like that if she was stuffing with cooked meat? I erred on the side of cooking. I mean, I guess you wouldn't say "don't cook" in instructions, but I thought it was weird. And, since R clearly does not like me, vis-a-vis bizarre recipe-sharing demeanor, I knew that emailing or calling (not that I have her number or would be authorized to get it) would probably get me nothing.

They were delicious anyway! My meat marinated for two nights because ... I have a toddler. They took me a couple of hours to assemble, and I assembled close to 60, I think. I had 1&1/2 lbs. beef, which doesn't look like very much in a bowl. When you realize you are only spooning a couple of teaspoons into each one, however, you know you're in it for the long haul.

In comparing this second set of lumpia with the first, I learned what makes a difference. First, marinate the meat, etc., overnight in a generous amount of soy sauce. R's recipe is 1/4 cup and the others I have only call for a tablespoon with as much meat. Not enough flavor and seasoning. Second, lumpia wrappers are awesome! Imagine a crepe; now slice it horizontally and you have the thin thin lumpia wrapper. I found them in the frozen section and spent I don't know how long just pulling them apart before stuffing them. Much much thinner than wonton wrappers, and that makes all the difference in the crunch factor. Third, egg is superior to water as a sealant. Fourth, and most importantly, Who needs a stinking fryer? You can totally do anything in a wok!

I bet I need to make my own wrappers to be declared Honorary Filipina. I'll work on that.

Next ethnic dish that requires a ridiculous amount of time: pastizzi. It's Maltese!

Lumpia

Me: I think I need a fryer to make these look and taste right.

Josh: Well, you used wonton wrappers. Those aren't made from rice flour.

Me: Oh, yeah. I guess that makes sense. Say, was that your smarty-pants, know-it-all voice? Are you being condescending?

Josh: I don't have a know-it-all, etc. voice.

Me: There! That's it!

I might have made most of that conversation up, but the facts are good: I used wheat flour wrappers. Although Uwaj claims to be a rather comprehensive Asian foodstuffs purveyor, I did not see "lumpia wrappers." And I didn't think to look for rice paper wrappers. Curses. That must have been the problem with Sam liking the lumpia. He knew what authentic was; my lumpia were not it.

My setup. Ready for stuffing.

Making dumplings is an art. I'm sure I don't have to tell you that. The ones that Sam has had before, and liked, made by R, are always perfect little cigars. A couple of mine came out looking pretty good, but getting them "right" was taking way too long, so I started rolling them as a diamond instead of a square. It was easier, but not as pretty. A person learns many a thing while making dumplings of whatever sort. I learned that you really need to crumble the meat completely. The few large chunks seemed to bust through the wrappers every time, such that several needed to be double-wrapped. Since I still have half a pack of wrappers, I will continue to use my newfound dumpling knowledge for Good.

They came out okay. I got the recipe off the Food Network. The whole reason I dared to try lumpia is becuse Sam liked them so much, the several times he had them. R, a friend of a friend, is Filippina and has brought them to several dinner parties. Hers are little fried rods of meat in a perfectly crunchy shell. So good, you don't even need dipping sauce, although she always makes some that is quite tasty. I asked for the recipe, but never heard back, so I went searching on my own. Voila. The FN recipe includes a bunch of vegetables, while R's is solid meat. Of course, since I was making them for Sam, sneaking in veggies couldn't possibly be a bad thing. The stuffing, however, was largely flavorless. Again, not always a bad thing for a toddler, so I plowed ahead.

In the end, Sam liked the crunchy outer part, and did eat a bit of the stuffing of one. He must have thought that the lumpia was all crunch because he boldly grabbed a second and bit through about 1/3 of it with gusto. And ... then ... it ... came tumbling out of his mouth. Not by accident. If you have a toddler, you know that sometimes spitting accidents happen. This was definitely purposeful; I saw the tongue on the ejection follow-through.

Once again, I had a backup plan. Josh and I added lumpia to our dinner of fried rice. I was going to make a pasta salad. But the day was so gray, and the pasta salad equally gray (if you're thinking pouring-salad-dressing-over-noodles gray, you would have what I was intending). So the lumpia actually provided inspiration for a way out.

You won't find the recipe here, of course, because they weren't very good. My friend EB reportedly has R's recipe, so you will see another lumpia attempt. This I swear.