Taking My Lumpia

Every now and again I'll just decide to try and make a dish I've never made before.  Tonight was one of those nights and the food of choice was lumpia.  While it wasn't the catastrophic disaster that was my attempt at fusion cooking (Mexican Thai Curry Chicken fingers...which doesn't even sound good 'on paper'...this unspeakable horror set the culinary arts back several years), it wasn't smooth sailing either.

I didn't plan on following a recipe because recipes are for people that actually want to be somewhat efficient...work harder, not smarter is my motto.  I had lumpia a few weeks back and it seemed really straight forward...egg roll wrappers, a protein, some vegetables, and some screamin' hot oil to cook it all in.  Yes, well.

My problems began when I went to Uwajimaya at lunch to purchase egg roll wrappers.  You'd think that in a store specializing in Asian foods one wouldn't be able to swing a dead cat without hitting egg roll wrappers (the dead cat is not a reference to, um, Asians eating cats...), yet it took me close to 15 minutes of looking around like a round eye tourist before I finally had to ask someone where the egg roll wrappers were.  The clerk gazed upon me as if I was the most remedial shopper to ever step foot in that store.  Egg roll wrappers were in the frozen food section, aisle 2...so, yeah.

I also bought some authentic Thai jasmine rice as I have grown weary of inauthentic rice posing as Thai jasmine.  We will have none of that nonsense.

Wrappers and rice in hand, I finished out my work day and headed home to make lumpia without a recipe. 

Now, lumpia is really nothing more than an egg roll...hence the egg roll wrappers, although the wrappers I bought specifically said 'lumpia' on the box.  ANYWAY, it is the same basic premise as an egg roll...you fill the wrapper, roll it up, fry it, enjoy! 

I used ground beef, zucchini (from my garden!), water chestnuts, carrots and garlic for my filling.  I seasoned it with a little sea salt, a splash of soy sauce (because the sea salt just wasn't enough sodium for this hypertension sufferer), and some black pepper.  Making the filling was the easy part.  Getting the filling into the wrappers without tearing them was a challenge.  Another obstacle was cultural...being part Mexican I am predisposed to think that any kind of food that requires placing a filling in a flat, round pastry is a burrito.  Years and years of burrito rolling had to be overcome, but my burrito rolling tendencies were extremely difficult to maneuver past...so my first three lumpia were unmitigated disasters.  They looked like chimichangas, but with water chestnuts and zucchini bursting out of them. 

Another problem I ran into was with the cooking oil.  I used peanut oil, but peanut oil I purchased at WalMart, so it didn't really behave like peanut oil.  It smoked too much at too low of a heat, so the lumpia had to sit in the oil longer than it should have.  It took about four lumpia before I decided to go really light on the oil, and that really helped.  Lesson learned - don't buy WalMart brand peanut oil and expect decent results.

Once I had cooked up all the lumpia, it was time to finally eat one...and they weren't bad at all.  I ate the first attempts, you know, the ones that were too oily and were falling apart, leaving the 'good' ones for The Better Half.  The filling turned out really good, although I might add jalapeno to it next time (yeah, I know...I'm dancing awfully close to the fusion line again...but jalapenos have been used in Asian food, and it's not like I said I was going to try to make chicken mole lumpia....mmmmmm, mole) to give them a little kick.  Another benefit is that my lumpia were so oily that I'll be waking up with a youthful glean to my skin tomorrow!  If I were a golden retriever I'd have a nice shiny coat...winner!  I might try baking the lumpia next time...

Now I have to think up a dish to BBQ for our annual block party this Saturday....I'm thinking chorizo infused teriyaki chicken sliders...