Recipe: Fresh Lumpia (Lumpia Sariwa)

Fresh Lumjpia (Lumpia Sariwa)

Fresh Lumpia, or Lumpia Sariwa, is a completely different animal than fried lumpia. The latter is what’s commonly found in Filipino restaurants in the US, and it’s very similar to a fried Chinese eggroll or Vietnamese spring roll. Fresh lumpia is more like a crepe, wrapped around a savory filling and topped with an peanutty, garlicky sauce. This is our attempt to recreate the fresh lumpia we enjoyed in the 1980s in the long-departed House of Lumpia in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles. Makes about half a dozen lumpia.

The filling should have a mild savory flavor and you can mix and match ingredients as you like (including making an all-veggie version) but sweet potato and shredded cabbage seem to be universal. Some recipes substitute milk for water in the crepe, leave out the cornstarch or use more eggs but the end result is a mainly a neutral platform for the dish. The sauce is really the key and it should be as garlicy as you can stand it.

Ingredients, for the crepes:
1 egg, beaten
¼ c cornstarch
¾ c all-purpose flour
Pinch of salt
1 t sugar
1 ½ c (approx.) water

For the filling:
225 g/8 oz ground pork, chopped shrimp, chopped tofu or a combination
2 T vegetable oil if needed (my pork was very fatty so didn’t)
1 rib/50g chopped celery
2 cloves garlic. chopped
3 t grated ginger
100 g onion, chopped (half a large onion)
100 g carrot, chopped (a large peeled carrot)
125 g yam, peeled and finely chopped (about a c)
2 c shredded cabbage
2 T fish sauce
Water, maybe ¼ c
½ t pepper
Additional salt to taste (you may not need it)
Sliced jalapeño, optional (I like a bit of heat but have found no in-country recipes that include it)
A few scallions, optional, sliced lengthwise into one-inch shreds

For the sauce:
½ head garlic, divided into cloves but not peeled*
1 T neutral oil
2 T chopped garlic
2 T chopped peanuts
3 T peanut butter
1 c water
1 ½ T cornstarch
3 T brown sugar
2 T soy sauce
1 T white or cane vinegar

Method: make the filling first. Stir fry onion and garlic in oil; add protein and cook through. Parboil sweet potato cubes in a small pot until they are just beginning to soften, about 5 minutes. Reserve. Add celery and carrot and stir-fry until barely tender, then add reserved sweet potato. Add water and cabbage and stir in; allow cabbage to soften from residual heat. Add fish sauce and taste for seasoning. You’ll need some pepper and maybe a bit of salt. Add optional jalapeños and scallions and scant handful of chopped peanuts at the end.

Lumpia Wrappers

Make the wrappers: whisk cornstarch into beaten egg. Mix in salt and sugar. Add water and flour in alternate scoops, a quarter cup at a time, whisking constantly, until all flour is incorporated. The batter should have the consistency of cream; if it’s thicker than that add more water. Set aside at least 15 minutes while you work on the other steps. When you’re ready, heat a nonstick pan to low-medium, then pour in the batter a quarter cup at a time and swirl to reach edge of pan; If the crepe doesn’t expand easily to the edge, add more water to the batter. Cook just until surface is dry and edges are beginning to curl up, then flip onto a towel to rest, uncooked side down. Repeat with remaining batter.

Lumpia Filing

Make the sauce: boil the unpeeled garlic cloves until they are very tender when poked with a fork, maybe 20 minutes. Drain. When the cloves are cool enough to handle, squeeze out the cloves into a small saucepan, discard peel, and mash into a slurry. Sauté for about a minute, then proceed with the recipe. *Add ¾ c water, peanut butter, soy sauce and brown sugar and heat till sugar is dissolved. In a small cup, mix cornstarch with remaining water and add to the gravy on the stove. Stir until thickened. Add half the chopped peanuts and chopped garlic.

To assemble: place an open wrapper on a bed of romaine leaves. Fill the wrapper with about ½ cup filling in its center, then place a small romaine leaf on top and fold the edges over the filling. Pour over the sauce and garnish with additional chopped peanuts and garlic. Eat with knife and fork, or pick up the romaine on the plate and enclose the lumpia in it and eat like a taco.

*You can also just peel and sauté the raw cloves which will give a sharper and less subtle taste. Or, work with a bag of pre-peeled garlic