Sunday, July 11, 2010

Lumpia

My Mother worked with a Filipino lady when I was a little girl and she would make these for my Mom.  I quickly learned how to fry them myself and they were always soooo good! When my Mom left the job I never had them again until I ran across this recipe one day! I was so happy and excited that I went to the international market and bought all the ingredients and EOP and I had them for lunch! 




Ingredients:
  • 1 pound ground beef
  • 3/4 cup shredded carrots
  • 1/2 cup chopped onions
  • 1 teaspoon or 2 cloves minced garlic
  • 3/4 teaspoon pepper
  • 2 teaspoons season salt
  • 1 package of 50 Lumpia Wrappers or 2 packages of 25 individually separated Lumpia Wrappers
  • 1-1 1/2 cup(s) vegetable or olive oil
  • Small bowl of water
First, you'll want to brown your ground beef with your chopped onions, shredded carrots, garlic, pepper, and season salt, over medium high heat in a skillet or frying pan. (I recommend using a frying pan that is at-least 1 1/2" to 2" deep. I use the same pan to fry the lumpia in once it is rolled and finished.) When the meat is nice and brown drain the excess grease and set aside.
Now, here comes the fun part. Separate the Lumpia wrappers. In all my years of making Lumpia I have not found any easy way to separate this darn things but I will tell you how I do it; maybe you can come up with an easy way. The wrappers need to be defrosted if they are frozen. You'll also want to have a plate to set them on as well as a damp kitchen towel to cover them, we don't want our wrappers to dry out! Open the package and take out the stack of Lumpia wrappers, start at the edges and gently start peeling the edges upward, continue around and round until you eventually get to the center and loosen the individual sheet off of the stack. Now, place the loose sheet on your plate under the damp towel or cloth. And basically repeat until the stack or package is done. Sounds easy right? It's not! It will take you a few times of separating before you get the hang of it, probably midway between the stack.
We are now ready to assemble our Lumpia Rolls.
  • Take 1 of the Lumpia wrappers and spoon 1-2 tablespoons of your ground beef mixture into a line near the edge on the Lumpia wrapper.
  • Fold Lumpia wrapper over the line of meat you just spooned.
  • Now, you will begin to roll the meat into a tube. Stop rolling when you are to the middle of the wrapper.
  • Fold the right and left sides of the lumpia wrapper to the center
  • Continue to roll to the end of the wrapper
  • Dip your fingers in the small bowl of water and lightly moisten the exposed edge of the lumpia wrapper
  • Fold wrapper edge onto itself pressing it down gently. So it seems to glue itself down.
  • Place to the side for now and repeat, repeat, repeat! Until there isn't anymore wrappers or meat left.
All that's left to do now is heat your oil in your frying pan on medium high heat. You only need about 1/2" of oil across the bottom of the pan. Once the oil is hot place about 4-5 Lumpia across the pan and lightly brown each side of the lumpia. About 3-5 minutes each side. It will also vary with your stove. So if it seems like they are burning quickly turn your burner down. They should be a nice golden brown color. Now you want to let them cool and drain some of the excess grease off of them. My mother and I have always used a colander, feel free just to set them on paper towels or napkins. Repeat until you've made desired amount or they are all done. You can store extras(before they are fried in oil!) in the freezer to fry later on. That's another great benefit to this recipe, you can make 50 at a time and only fry 10 one day and saved the others for when you feel like it.

Serve with Ketchup!

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