Cookaholics Bulletin Board

While I was napping this evening, my wife slipped into the kitchen and knocked out some finger food. Mashed potatoes. They were a big hit at my young sister-in-laws birthday party a couple of weeks back. So how messy are they? Not so bad, really.

The trick is the Asian wrapper, known in the Philippines as "lumpia". Jen fills the wrapper with mashed potatoes of one flavor or another, plain, garlic, sour cream ... whatever. Then she usually lays down a long small sliver of cheese in the center. Wrap the puppy up, deep fry it, and voila! Gravy makes a great dipping sauce. The local kids love them as do a number of my expat friends.

I wondered how you'd get finger food out of mashed potatoes & gravy! Sounds delicious. I've never seen lumpia. I'll check at the orietal market when I'm there next.
fitzie

Lumpia are smallish egg rolls or veggie wraps, made out of rice flour, kind of thin and fragile. They fry up quickly.

I had intended to take photos of her making them, but as I mentioned, I was snoozing. Here is a photo I grabbed off the internet that is pretty representative of what lumpia look like:

You can also make croquettes- pipe the mashed potatoes into logs about 3" long, chill, then flour, dip in egg, and roll in bread crumbs before frying.