The Delights of Lumpia: Indonesia

By Barrie | July 11th, 2007 | 1 Comment »

Being a country with two seasons, the dry and the rainy, we do not have special food for special seasons. Chinese envoys and traders long ago brought seasonal foods with them when they anchored in their ports of call.

The local inhabitants readily adapted some of the fare brought by the seafarers and one of the most renown is a snack called lun pia (lun = stuffing, pia = bread or cake) now called lumpia as gastronome and epicurean el supremo Suryatini N. Ganie explains.

This is already known here but from the beginning of last century was called lumpiah.

The lumpia is now among the sweet and savory items kue jajan pasar (snacks available at the market) and accepted as one of the items on a tray of food served at ceremonial events.

Although it is also a daily snack, some people take a lumpia as a stomach filling pre-meal foodstuff.

But let us first taste a lumpia nearer to its place of origin in northern China.

In Hong Kong it is called ch’un chuan. Wrapped in very thin wrappers made of all purpose flour mixed with duck or hen eggs, water and salt, it is stuffed with either shredded pork or chicken fillet, shredded canned young bamboo shoots, shredded dried black mushrooms and chopped chive shoots and is served with a rather sweet-salty sauce.

Hong Kong’s lumpia or ch’un chuan could be a lumpia sold in many restaurants or eateries in the northern part of Jakarta, in Jakarta Kota, though many lumpias here mostly do not have black mushrooms in the stuffing.

In Hawaii, the lumpia has a rather unusual stuffing, because taro is used to stuff the lumpia wrapper and also vegetables like carrots, French beans and broccoli.

Amsterdam and Rotterdam, ports of call of many a Chinese ship, lumpia or sometime called lovingly lumpies in Amsterdam slang, have a stuffing of mung bean sprouts or finely sliced cabbage leaves, shallots, garlic, salt and pepper.

Most housewives make the wrapping like a soft pancake instead of a rather opaque lumpia wrapper.

But the lumpia coming from afar seemed to like the South East Asian regions and established itself in many countries.

In the Philippines there is the lumpia Filipina and in Singapore popiah with some steamed and finely sliced lap cheong, Chinese sausages and dried sole (tikpo in Hokkien) as an addition to the stuffing.

Here in Indonesia it has been “going archipelago” and there is a lumpia Padang — hot and spicy as mostly other Padang foods, lumpia Semarang — with bamboo shoots and fermented soy bean sauce, and lumpia Surabaya — with and addition of bamboo shoots and chicken broth.

Once I tasted lumpias with creative sweet stuffings like fruit marmalades. I had also a taste of a crunchy lumpia jagung or corn stuffed lumpia.

So what about the wrappers? Some 20 years ago it was rather difficult for inexperienced cooks to prepare a lumpia — mainly because of the wrapper which requires a bit of skill to make it perfectly.

But nowadays lumpia and other wrappers are sold fresh daily in traditional markets and super markets. But one suggestion, just have a closer look at the wrappers — some are still good but have cracks.

And should you need more than 10 wrappers, then store them under a dampened cloth so they do not dry out or crack.

Last but not least, the lumpia wrapper has many “brothers” and “sisters” and these wrappers are made in various forms.

The wrappers for pangsit is smaller and needs a specific wrapping technique.

The smallest wrapper which is sold by the kilo is the sunpia, which is served as a snack or just enjoyed like fried peanuts.

The Jakarta Kota sunpias are one of the best and one can easily be addicted.

The stuffing in the mini sunpias is mostly hebi or ebi — dried shrimp.

Suryatini N. Ganie