LUMPIA / LUMPIAS

Steps:

• Begin thawing the frozen spring roll wrappers 30 minutes before using. When thawed, cover the stack with a moist towel so they don't dry out. I keep a spray bottle of pure water on hand to spritz it periodically. Spring rolls are very fragile, so handle carefully.
• Combine meat, carrot, onion, water chestnuts and cabbage in a large bowl and mix well.
• Add soy sauce, pepper and garlic, and mix thoroughly again.
• Over medium heat, cook this mixture, breaking up meat as it browns, for about 10-12 minutes or until cooked through. Drain.
• Gently peel one wrapper from the stack (recover with damp cloth) and place it on a flat surface with one of the corners pointing toward you.
• Place a loosely-packed 1/4 cup of the meat filling in a horizontal line across the wrapper leaving about 2 inches of wrapper on the left and right ends of the filling.
• Roll the corner nearest you up over the filling, very gently tucking the tip of that corner under the meat. Roll as tightly as possible about halfway up.
• Then tuck in the left and right corners (these will be the lumpia ends) and continue rolling the lumpia as tightly as possible, but gently, away from you until it's a complete cylinder.
• Moisten the last corner furthest from you (a squirt bottle comes in handy here) to seal the wrapper, and then place it on a plate until cooking. You can also just dip your fingers in water and seal that way as well.
• Continue rolling all lumpias in this fashion until the meat mixture is finished.
• Heat oil to about 350°F.
• Turning once halfway through cooking, fry no more than 3 lumpia at a time, or the temperature change will be too drastic to cook them properly. Too low and they'll become too greasy; too high and they'll burn....as demonstrated rather skillfully in my photographs. *lol*. Total fry time is entirely dependent on the color you want your lumpias to have. Since the filling is actually already cooked, you don't need to worry about under-cooking! It's almost idiot-proof, unless you're me and believe, despite all evidence to the contrary, that you CAN multitask. I like a medium-dark golden color which was achieved (after a bit of trial and error) after about 2 minutes per side.
• Drain on paper towels and serve with dipping sauce.