Burnt Lumpia

Shanghaied at Rasa Malaysia

Photo illustration and overall awesomeness by Rasa Malaysia

I couldn't help but to giggle a bit when Rasa Malaysia asked me to be a guest writer for her blog--especially because she specifically requested that I write about the Filipino spring rolls known as Lumpia. Quite apropos, I thought, considering the name of my own blog. Though I tried vigilantly to avoid any charring of any spring rolls for this post, the last one or two in my frying pan did set off the old smoke alarm (sometimes I can't help myself)...

So I decided to do a recipe for Lumpiang Shanghai--a small, thin type of fried lumpia. Lumpiang Shanghai is a favorite of mine because it is fairly easy to make--just roll the wrapper over the meat, no fancy folding is required so the spring rolls are left open-ended.

To learn more about different types of Lumpia, and to find my easy recipe for Lumpiang Shanghai, hop on over to Bee's wonderful blog, Rasa Malaysia, to read my guest post.

***

Fresh on the heels of Joey's guest post about adobo, I was ecstatic when Bee asked me if I'd like to introduce even more Filipino food to her readers. Of course I would! After all, everyone deserves a little bit of Filipino food in their bellies!

When I Dip You Dip We Dip

Every Filipino family has their own version of a dipping sauce for lumpia.  The dipping sauce my mother makes is very simple and consists of vinegar, chopped garlic, and ground black pepper.  When I make my mom’s sauce, I usually throw in some red pepper flakes for some extra spice.

It might not seem very obvious at first, but lumpia dipping can be a very serious endeavor.  Especially when you consider the consequences.

For instance, before taking a bite of my lumpia, I dip its closed end directly into the dipping sauce.  But once I take a bite, I do not dip it back into the sauce.  Usually, I don’t mind double-dipping—you could double-dip your chips in the salsa as much as you’d like.  But lumpia is different.  It’s got cargo inside.

Once you bite the end off of a lumpia it transforms itself from a Filipino eggroll to an open tube of loose meat!  Gravity and an overturned open tube of loose meat are not friends!  Mother Nature scoffs at your dipping sauce! Pretty soon there will be bits of meat and shards of once-crisp lumpia wrapper floating in what was formerly a pristine pool of vinegar and spice.

(I just thought of this, but if I were part of a tag team of Filipino wrestlers, I’d want our name to be “Vinegar and Spice”. Vinegar would be the surly one and Spice would be the flamboyant tactician.  I could play either role.  Our finishing move would be the “Quadruple Tsinelas Dropkick to the Face!” But I digress. Back to my original post.)

I don’t want to see your meat floating in my sauce!  It’s unacceptable and it’s gross and it’s something I refer to as LSP (Lumpia Sauce Pollution). It’s a serious problem, folks.

Rollin' With Mom

Like most Asian mothers, my mother’s Powers of Nagging are magnified a hundred-fold when in the kitchen.  Likewise, my sensitivity to her nagging is proportionally heightened – which is why I haven’t attempted to cook anything in her kitchen since the great Turkey Debacle of 2002. It’s another story for another time, but I quickly want to give a sampling of my mother’s “constructive criticism” from that night:

"Why is your turkey in a bucket of water? Do you know what you’re doing?”
“We don't eat cranberry sauce, why are you making that?”
“You're gonna make rice aren't you?”
“Are you gonna be much longer, your Dad's already falling asleep.”
“This drumstick is still pink inside!"

And on and on she went.

Ugh.

Praise isn't a concept my family quite understands, but they are masters of criticism - especially my mother. After that night, I swore I would never, ever, cook anything again for my family - especially my mother.

(Wait, what’s that you say? A vendetta taken too far? Against my own mother? Listen, Ass, you try cooking up some white-people-food for an impossible-to-please-hungry-Filipino-family and get back to me about vendettas.) Ahem. Uh, anyhoo…

Five years later, that promise to myself is getting harder to keep, especially now that I’m wanting to learn more about Filipino food.  I can't exactly cull Filipino recipes from my mother without having to cook with her. So, I put my kitchen blood feud against my mother aside, at least for one day, and asked her to show me how to make lumpia – a fried (generally speaking that is, lumpia can also be prepared unfried and fresh) Filipino appetizer similar to a spring roll.

And you know what? It was a pretty good experience.