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Fresh Lumpia

A Filipino spring roll with pork, vegetables, and shrimp, served with a sweet soy sauce.

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Why it works: Potato and jicama work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and 7 recipes mention both. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat, peanut, soy, fish, shellfish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

  • Lumpia Sauce
  • Lumpia Wrapper

Directions

Make the wrappers

  1. Combine eggs and salt. Gradually add flour, alternating with milk. Beat with a whisk until smooth. Beat in oil gradually. Refrigerate batter 1 hour.

  2. Brush a non-stick crepe pan with oil and place over low heat. Ladle in 2 tablespoons batter, swirl to cover pan and pour off excess. Cook until the wrapper can be lifted (if batter bubbles, the pan is too hot). Turn and cook just to warm the other side.

Make the sauce

  1. Combine first four ingredients of the sauce; bring to a light boil.

  2. Add cornstarch, stir until thickened. Remove from heat, then stir in garlic.

Make the filling

  1. Saute garlic and onions in oil. Add pork and saute until fat begins to render. Add water, bring to a boil, reduce heat and cover. Simmer 10 minutes.

  2. Add fish sauce, salt, pepper and potato. Cook 5-7 minutes. Add vegetables, peanuts and shrimp. Stir-fry 5-10 minutes. Cool.

Assemble and serve

  1. Place a lettuce leaf in the center of a wrapper.

  2. Add 2 tablespoons filling.

  3. Fold the bottom of the wrapper over the filling.

  4. Wrap one side over the filling and roll to the other side. The edge of the lettuce will stick out.

  5. Seal the edge with water.

  6. Wrap each lumpia in wax paper.

  7. Serve with sauce and minced garlic or peanuts.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Potato + jicamatop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together7 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together29,030 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Pork + potatotop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,667 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Onion + potatotop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together9,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Potato + green beanstop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together81 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and set into a firm, flexible wrapper structure when cooked.
Flour
Forms the gluten and starch network that gives the thin wrapper its structure.
Pork
Adds savory flavor and richness as its fat renders into the filling.
Potato
Adds soft starchy body and moisture to the filling.
Cornstarch
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells and sets when heated.
Shrimp
Contributes sweet, savory seafood flavor to the filling.

The step that matters

Cooking the wrapper. The batter must spread thin and cook gently. If the pan is too hot, the surface sets and bubbles before the wrapper is cooked through, so it tears when lifted.

Flavor stand-ins for the green beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (garlic, onion, pork, fish sauce, pepper, potato, cabbage):

  1. Tomatobetter flavor fit
  2. Broccolibetter flavor fit
  3. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  4. Green beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against garlic, onion, pork, fish sauce, pepper, potato, cabbage. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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