Comfort Food

I have adjusted pretty well to eating american foods in that, I don’t have to eat rice in every meal, everyday anymore. But nevertheless, I gotta have my comfort food once or twice a week, at least. This means rice, or something else that’s familiar to me.

So last night, I decided to do a dish that I grew up with. This dish is what we call “lumpia” (pronounced as loom-pya) in our vernacular, or a.k.a. spring roll to the rest of the world. This dish and “pansit” (Filipino noodles) are the staple of every Filipino party. Go to a Filipino gathering and chances are, you will find this dish served on the table.

In my country, there are 3 kinds of lumpia – the vegetable lumpia (veggie spring roll), the lumpia shang-hai (meat-filled spring roll) and the fresh lumpia (veggie filled but using a crepe-like wrap). As you can see, this time I chose to do the the meat-filled spring roll.

I didn’t have to follow a recipe for this dish. I learned to make this at an early age and have made this with my mother a countless number of times with her in the past.

Traditionally, the meat used for this dish is ground pork. But in an effort to somehow lessen the fat (because this is deep fried), I used ground chicken – but with a twist. Because chicken needs a lot of flavor, I thought of adding shrimp to the mixture.

This is a labor intensive dish. Rolling the wrap takes a long time, especially if you’re making a bunch of them. So to free myself from all the chopping and mincing, I threw in all the veggie (garlic, onion, carrot, red & green bell pepper, red pepper flakes) and shrimp in the food processor for a few quick pulses. This would also make for the same texture as the meat which is important so that the filling cooks evenly.

And then for yet another flavor, I thought of laying a few fresh cilantro leaves down on the wrap with the meat before rolling each one up.

Then as a side dish, I made an Asian salad which was inspired by Ina Garten of Barefoot Contessa. I just took some elements from her salad and made my own from there :fresh bean sprouts, fresh shredded carrots, spring onion and sugar snap peas. The peas I had to blanch for just a couple of minutes to make it a bit tender. The dressing is simple: soy sauce, vegetable oil, rice wine vinegar, 1/8 tsp of ginger, dash of sugar, salt and pepper.

The dip is store-bought, my favorite sweet and spicy dip from Thailand.

Note: It is important to fry the spring roll in low fire (maybe medium-low heat) to allow for the cooking of the meat. If the heat is to high, chances are you’ll end up with a burnt wrap and a half-cooked meat.