Lumpiang Gulay

These spring rolls/eggrolls/lumpia were not made by me. A friend made it for a picnic gathering, and we all partook of the delicious fruits of her hard work. I have featured lumpia in a previous post, though rice paper was used there. You can follow the same recipe, but use spring roll wrappers (Wei Chuan is a great brand, as is several others — I’ll do a post on the different ones available here sometime soon) that are usually found in the frozen section of your Asian supermarket.

If at all possible, avoid the “egg roll wrappers” available in regular grocery stores, as they are not as thin and do not fry as crisp. They have a different texture altogether, and tend to bubble up in places; while the effect is quite charming, they do not make for good eating and tend to turn soggy much more quickly than their Asian counterparts. Of course, that has also much to do with what’s in the spring rolls/egg rolls themselves.

Those that are made predominantly with cabbage often absorb more oil, though that is also often a function of what you do with the cabbage before it’s wrapped and fried. I much prefer the Filipino version (no surprise there), which is made up of a number of vegetables. Mung bean sprouts are my favorite for its combination of crunch and juiciness, but nutrition-wise you would be better off going with the recipes that include healthier choices like sweet potato, green beans and tofu.

When I do add mung bean sprouts, I either cook them very briefly at the last stages of stir-frying, not more than a minute or two, or choose not to cook them at all, since they will be fried when added to the vegetable mixture prior to wrapping.

Other recipes you can try:

Crispy Vegetable Spring Rolls from The Kitchen Hand’s Stories
Rollin’ with Mom from Burnt Lumpia
Celia’s recipe at English Patis
Here’s a kid enjoying his egg rolls!