06 August 2016

It’s a wrap!

Ubod sa lubi (heart of palm) lettuce wrap

For someone who can not wrap a decent spring roll, I sure had the audacity to take on fresh lumpia. Yep — including making wrapper from scratch. Can you tell that that did not go well at all?

A sudden bounty of ubod sa lubí (heart of palm; from aging coconut trees at the farm) had inspired a spate of ubod dishes (heart of palm needs to be used ASAP or it loses its distinctive sweetness). We had it pickled, sautéed with canned sardines, in (ni)law-oy, and, inevitably, fresh lumpia.

It is arguably in fresh lumpia that heart of palm is best showcased, its soft crunch offering a pleasant contrast to the pillowy wrapper. Alas, my crepes were the texture of coarse paper (here I mention that the recipe I worked from called for cornstarch) — I tried one and promptly threw out the rest. I would have tried another recipe, this time with flour, but I was out of that.

Sauteed ubod sa lubi (heart of palm) in lettuce cup

The filling was fine, if a tad overseasoned. My mother ate it as is. But I had already made the sauce, chopped the nuts, and prepared lettuce leaves, so I ended up assembling them into cups. If you had no idea what I was really up to, you could say the dish looks inspired. Come to think of it, that could be how the first lettuce wrap came to be. I can’t be the only one who can’t wrap spring roll for shit.

Monty Python — Always Look on the Bright Side of Life

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