446: Crispy Spring Rolls

Matthew Amster-Burton 0:04

I'm Matthew.

Molly 0:05

I'm Molly.

Matthew Amster-Burton 0:05

And this is filled out the show where we cook something delicious. Eat it all, and you can't have any.

Molly 0:10

We also struggle to remember how our show starts.

Matthew Amster-Burton 0:14

Now I'm holding up this paper that says how it stops. Anyway, so I'm good.

Molly 0:19

Welcome to episode number 446. Everybody, I just happened to notice that that is a huge number. Today we're talking about spring rolls.

Matthew Amster-Burton 0:29

Yeah. What do you think we should do for Episode 500? Let's do something so crazy that people are very upset.

Molly 0:36

I hope that for Episode 500, we can do something like, record in the same room again.

Matthew Amster-Burton 0:42

And like both reach our hands into a bag of chips at the same time and our fingers like touch

Molly 0:48

and we don't we don't have to freak out and sanitize.

Matthew Amster-Burton 0:51

Exactly. Okay, this episode was suggested. Oh, wait, we didn't say what this episodes about

Molly 0:56

it. I said it was spring rolls. Yeah. Oh, great. Thank

Matthew Amster-Burton 0:58

you. This was suggested by listener Lucy. Thank you listener loosely, loosely. Wow.

Molly 1:03

I don't think she wants to be known that I don't think so. Either.

Matthew Amster-Burton 1:07

Thank you listener Lucy. We wanted to mention before we get started that if you happen to be a stitcher premium subscriber or are interested in stitcher premium, it's a $5 a month thing with a lot of cool limited edition podcasts and stuff on it. And if you are on Stitcher premium, you can get spilled milk with no ads, which

Molly 1:25

is pretty great. I have Yeah, yeah.

Matthew Amster-Burton 1:27

It's stitcher.com slash bill bell. Excellent.

Molly 1:31

So okay, Matthew, let's talk terminology. Because

Matthew Amster-Burton 1:34

what we're talking about today is fried spring rolls. Yeah, this gets confusing really quickly because originally we were thinking we would do like fried spring rolls and fresh rolls slash summer rolls slash on fried spring rolls all in the same episode. But there was enough about fried spring rolls. I think so they're called, like, egg rolls. Yeah, spring rolls, chug yo in Vietnamese, how to Maki and in Japanese. What am I forgetting? They come from China originally

Molly 2:06

is how do is that like fried?

Matthew Amster-Burton 2:07

How do is? Is spring and Maki is roll. Okay. All right.

Molly 2:12

Yeah, I grew up knowing these as egg rolls and we would get them at who Nan

Matthew Amster-Burton 2:17

yes

Molly 2:18

e square. Which for

Matthew Amster-Burton 2:21

Shawn would sit would serve which

Molly 2:22

is where Shawn the maitre D with his pleated pants. I think Shawn Truthfully, I don't know for sure. But he was. Okay, never. I

Matthew Amster-Burton 2:32

don't know where you're going with this.

Molly 2:33

I was just gonna say that. I wonder if Shawn was the first gay man I ever knew in my entire life. But I'm now realizing that I don't actually know if he was gay.

Matthew Amster-Burton 2:42

I was like, just did did you have like gaydar that went off?

Molly 2:46

Yeah, yeah. Anyway, but yeah, who Nan so many formative moments of my child. Yeah. Okay. Sounds like heard

Matthew Amster-Burton 2:53

at this ring of keys. Yeah,

Molly 2:56

this ring of keys. And I said, you are someone I'm going to grow up to be but unfortunately, by the time I grew up, who Nan was gone, and I was answer you could I couldn't be Sean, the maitre D. Anyway, he was a gracious and lovely person. And I hope wherever he is now. Absolutely.

Matthew Amster-Burton 3:15

That he's doing great. I

Molly 3:16

hope I hope he's somewhere. Anyway, so yeah, who Nan so we would always, always always get egg rolls as we call them as our starter. That is, I mean, I grew up in a wasteland. As far as these things go. That was my sole experience on memory lane with nobody Oh, egg rolls. Yeah,

Matthew Amster-Burton 3:38

so my experience like I definitely had spring rolls and egg rolls like with Chinese American food when I was a kid. The ones that I remember super specifically and wife of the show Laurie was a big fan of this also was that when we were in high school, I think so in the very early 90s this restaurant opened up in southeast Portland called noodle head that was kind of it's kind of a hip pan Asian restaurant of the kind that I would probably look down upon today. But we thought we like we didn't know each other at the time but we both thought this place was excellent. And one of the things on the menu it was this the era of quote Asian fusion, it was but this was this was more pan Asian Asian fusion Okay, and like it was it was not like a fancy place at all it was it was pretty casual and not very expensive, which is why we would go there when we were in high school. And one of the things on the menu that we both enjoyed very much was the spring roll noodles, which was really just like their term for boon choco which I when I pronounce Vietnamese, like the tones are all wrong, but it's it's a glass noodle salad with vegetables and fried spring rolls on top and and like a no calm style dressing. And boy, is that stuff good. Like it was great at noodle head. It's great at any Vietnamese restaurant.

Molly 4:59

Yeah. here in Seattle i that is my standard order at Greenleaf.

Matthew Amster-Burton 5:04

Yes,

Molly 5:05

yeah do you ever pick up spring rolls now?

Matthew Amster-Burton 5:08

I do and the so one of my favorite places to get them is now out of business there remains Saigon deli near 12th and Jackson in Seattle there was there was until recently also Seattle deli like about two blocks away but in the in the same vicinity. And both of those places like like at any Vietnamese deli, where you would go and get like button me or, like, you know, they'll have a steam table of ready to eat foods, they'll have like other deli items in the case, they will always have a case full of fried spring rolls and they are usually like, you know, 50 or 75 cents each. They are always super hot when they give them to you. And they are great. How

Molly 5:51

do they keep them hot without them getting soggy? Because I think about I'm glad you asked like every now and then I will you know what actually I think the last time I had a spring roll outside of Greenleaf outside of the experience of having it you know as part of a boon which again I I also should not be pronouncing Vietnamese words.

Unknown Speaker 6:14

I

Molly 6:16

had some sort of Chinese American food at an airport around Christmas time. Maybe it was on the way to meet you guys in Tokyo and Oh yeah, anyway, so it was like you know, steam table stuff. But I have to say I looked at the egg roll and I was like even if this is extremely soggy This is going to taste delicious. And I got the egg roll along with my like, stir fried beef with snow peas and rice. Oh, that

Matthew Amster-Burton 6:43

sounds good.

Molly 6:44

I mean, so airport egg roll is a is a shade of other egg rolls, but it's still pretty good.

Matthew Amster-Burton 6:50

Yeah, but still still like does the job I think yes, we should have Andrea and when on the show sometime.

Molly 6:56

We should absolutely have Andrea and when on the show. We should have had Andrea noyon on

Matthew Amster-Burton 7:01

this show. Do you think it's too late? What if we get her number Hold

Molly 7:06

on What if we get her on the on the the fresh rolls episode because we're gonna do one of those. Okay, right.

Matthew Amster-Burton 7:12

Let's do okay. Yeah. Okay, great. Okay, so I'm glad you asked about how they keep the spring rolls. So crispy in the hot case at a Vietnamese deli? Because I did actually find the answer to this. The answer is that traditionally in Vietnam fried spring rolls are made with a rice paper wrapper like in the same you know, starting in the same way as as a fresh roll. But with made with ingredients that will fry better, but it's the same kind of wrapper, and those need to be eaten really quickly, or they will get soggy. Okay, and you know that not not that that makes them in any way inferior to ones made with a weed wrapper. It's just it's just a different experience. They're more delicate ones made with a super thin wheat flour wrapper are much more durable.

Molly 7:55

And that would be what I would have encountered. I think at most Chinese American restaurants,

Matthew Amster-Burton 8:01

right? Yes and No, no. So again, like you're you're like setting me up for all the stuff in the agenda and I appreciate it. No, no, no, no, that no, that was a compliment. friend of the show, Shao Ching chows book Chinese soul food. She has two spring recipes. One One is for spring rolls, and one is for egg rolls. And there are two key differences between spring rolls and egg rolls as she defines them. And I totally agree this fits my experience too.

Molly 8:30

Okay, I'm sorry, I'm reading ahead in the agenda and getting very excited. Come on,

Matthew Amster-Burton 8:34

right. Okay and Shao Chang's definition and is it's a great, great book, by the way, Chinese soulfood recommended a spring roll is it's smaller, it's made with a thinner wrapper, and it contains more more flavorful ingredients kind of loosely defined, like her springwell recipe, it's got like dried mushrooms in it. And other other stuff that Chinese and Chinese American families would have eaten all the time, but would have been seen as more challenging as pet specially when she was growing up to non Chinese dying. Okay. egg rolls. On the other hand, the thing that like most defines an egg roll to me as opposed to a spring roll is that it has a larger and thicker wrapper and it gets like bubbly when it's fried. Okay,

Molly 9:18

then you're saying this is an egg roll.

Matthew Amster-Burton 9:20

This is an egg roll. Neither of these is made with with much, much egg if at all. It's an outlay. But then the so then the egg roll is often filled with like bean sprouts, cabbage, carrots, a lot of inexpensive and sort of unchallenging vegetables. Yeah,

Molly 9:39

I think that that is certainly most of the fried rolls I've encountered in my life.

Matthew Amster-Burton 9:46

And I think the egg roll is is often really a vehicle for a dipping sauce. Whereas I think a good spring rolls stands on its own without needing a sauce.

Unknown Speaker 9:55

Mm hmm.

Molly 9:56

That makes a lot of sense. So just shout Ching. Say When her family would eat these was this like a site that was just like part of a meal like a side dish. Was this like the main attraction was this like a party thing? special occasion thing?

Matthew Amster-Burton 10:10

Yeah, absolutely so so not really as a main dish I don't think she doesn't really go into this in great detail in the book but my experience like in researching this and and talking to people and eating a lot of them myself, like spring rolls are served as like a component of a meal like in it like in a boon choco as a side dish as a snack. And most of all, as a party food if you are catering or like, you know, having having people over and you are a family of Filipino descent or Vietnamese descent or Chinese who said, like there is probably going to be a big platter of fried spring rolls, okay, okay. And most especially, I would say like my experience, and this is goes back to memory lane. Lori's grandmother wife that show Lori's grandmother was from the Philippines. And so she has a large extended Filipino family. And I've never ever been to like a family reunion or anniversary or any kind of party involving anyone from that side of the family without there being a huge platter of limpia.

Molly 11:11

Okay, and what are the fillings that that show up in Lori's family's lumpia

Matthew Amster-Burton 11:17

so there's gonna be like some pork and cabbage those are the most key things I think okay, then probably other vegetables as well.

Molly 11:25

Is there somebody in the family who makes them for these or is there like a special deli or something that they go to that's like their place where they've always gotten them.

Matthew Amster-Burton 11:33

So they're homemade. Laurie was telling me this last hour a couple nights ago and I forgotten so I'm gonna go ask.

Molly 11:38

Okay, thanks. Great. Oh my gosh, look, Matthews doing research.

Matthew Amster-Burton 11:44

Alright, I got I got the news. Oh, yeah. Give it to me was wife of the show Lori's mom's aunt Lois. So great. Aunt Lois made the best limpia and the feeling would be pork or chicken or both.

Molly 11:56

I want great aunt Lois is lumpia. Well,

Matthew Amster-Burton 12:00

here's the good news. I made lupia at home for the first time and they were a home run out of the gate.

Molly 12:06

Oh my god. Okay, wait a minute. How

Unknown Speaker 12:07

are you?

Matthew Amster-Burton 12:08

I so in that I'm really good with sports metaphors. As you know. So in baseball, there's a game

Molly 12:13

run out of the gate.

Matthew Amster-Burton 12:14

Right? The gate opens and a bunch of baseball guys pour out of the gate. Yeah. And they run and they run home. And there's a horse

Molly 12:22

or multiple horses. Yeah. who they're racing against.

Matthew Amster-Burton 12:25

It's it's that's American baseball. Baseball is different Canadian baseball. The horses all have like Mounted Police on them.

Molly 12:33

Oh, okay. Great.

Unknown Speaker 12:36

Nice one.

Molly 12:37

Okay, wait a minute. So okay, so tell me about the Lumia you made and how they differ from like, for instance, Shao Chang's recipe for her family's spring rolls.

Matthew Amster-Burton 12:49

Okay, so Chinese spring rolls, in my experience, I don't want to like over generalize, because anything in Chinese food, you will find literally hundreds if not 1000s of variations, but are often vegetarian or vegetable focused. Okay. And so, they will, they will have like, you know, cabbage and, you know, dried sheetrocking mushrooms and maybe like Lily buds and like other other vegetables that that fit the format like you know, flavorful shredded vegetables. And often glass noodles in the spring rolls also, Filipino lumpia are, tend to be much more meat focused. Okay, and so the recipe I made I found it on all recipes. It had extremely good reviews, and they were well deserved. There. The rest of us from user, little cutie pinay 23 All right, we'll link to it in the show notes.

Molly 13:43

Thank you little cutie pinay 23

Matthew Amster-Burton 13:45

It is based on ground pork. with cabbage. Let me pull up the recipe. Okay,

Molly 13:51

so it's ground pork. And do you do you finally do like shred the cabbage? Like, I mean, like as fine as you would do on a mandolin or?

Matthew Amster-Burton 13:59

Yeah, well, I sliced it by hand and just kind of minced it. Okay, so ground pork, garlic, onion, carrots, scallions, cabbage, and then Black pepper, salt, garlic powder. As soon as I saw garlic powder in the recipe, I was like this, this is the real thing. And so I sauce

Molly 14:16

cool. Okay, and so what kind of wrapper were using

Matthew Amster-Burton 14:20

I bought some spring roll wrappers from watching my and I liked it the package had first of all, it had like, some cartoons on the back for how to how to roll them. I'd had a recipe of course, but then it also had like a list of all of the different types of spring rolls from different countries that could be made with these wrappers. So like on the on the front of the thing it said like spring rolls, egg rolls, choco of limpia and so on.

Molly 14:45

And so was this a wheat based wrapper. It was a wheat based wrapper and

Matthew Amster-Burton 14:49

it's very it was very satisfying to peel the skins apart. Because they're very, they're very thin but very got a lot of elasticity so they don't break very Easily

Molly 15:00

Okay, do you have to warm them up or boil them or anything before you wrap them around the filling out of the package, wrap it up and then you you're ready to fry? Yeah, I

Matthew Amster-Burton 15:09

mean, I bought him frozen inside to thaw them. Okay, once they're thawed, you just just peel one off so the filling for these is pre cooked and that made me really reassured because I am a fearful fryer who should be there should be like a show called the fearful fryer.

Molly 15:27

It wouldn't be fryer as in frying or fryer as in F r i a R i

Matthew Amster-Burton 15:33

was thinking the ladder like I like a you know a cleric a man of the cloth a person of the cloth Hmm.

Molly 15:38

And and what kinds of things would he be scared of

Matthew Amster-Burton 15:40

everything? I think like he sounds like

Molly 15:43

a child. Let me go ahead and tell you what this fearful fryer was afraid of?

Matthew Amster-Burton 15:48

Did we already do a whole bonus episode? No, that's fine. No, no, I mean, but were you wearing any sort of frock because of fryer a fryer needs a frock I like I shouldn't eat device I

Molly 15:59

can I get a do over of my childhood? Oh,

Matthew Amster-Burton 16:04

I think about this every day. We've talked about this reason. But like, if they're This is how I would like abuse the Time Machine privilege.

Molly 16:13

What would you go back and redo? Did we talk about this? At a certain point, Matthew, I think we've talked about everything. What are

Matthew Amster-Burton 16:21

like your Three? Three biggest secrets that you haven't told me yet? Let's get it over with right.

Wait, wait, let's let's pause the recording and then you'll tell me. No,

Molly 16:40

wait, Matthew, but Hold on. Wait, what would you go back and change in your childhood? Oh,

Matthew Amster-Burton 16:45

I I'd like were like cooler pants. Yeah, okay. I think I probably had a lot of like, like, Shawn style pleated pants.

Molly 16:55

but so did everybody man. I mean, you know, fashionable?

Matthew Amster-Burton 16:59

I don't know. No, I think, you know, I wouldn't actually end up like accomplishing any of the things I wanted to accomplish. I think I you know, I wanted to be like, cool and have more friends.

Molly 17:09

Oh, man, me too, when I think back on it. So Matthew, I discovered the other day, that so there, there is a woman who I went to school with, like, all the way back to preschool. And she follows me on Instagram. And she's recently commented on some posts that I've put up about, like queerness and sexual orientation and things And anyway, it's it's been nice to have her be affirming since I come from a very conservative place. But um, but anyway, I was looking at her Instagram and then seeing that she had tagged like herself, she's still friends with all the the women she was friends with, in like high school and stuff, who were all the popular girls in my high school. And anyway, I went and like clicked on their profiles. Most of them are private, but they all follow me. And that was such a strange feeling. Because I spent so long, desperately wanting these girls to be kind to me. And now we live in this fucked up era where you can just sort of like follow anyone and know about their lives. But But like, you don't ever actually have to be nice to them. Or like be there for it.

Matthew Amster-Burton 18:23

That's true. I mean, I

Molly 18:24

find that's lovely. I'm glad for the internet.

Matthew Amster-Burton 18:27

Yeah, what I was gonna say is you're you're like a kind of a miniature Lady Gaga in that respect. Oh, right. I'm

Molly 18:34

sorry. To say it, I'm extremely small. And I'm a just like, Lady guy on every other one,

Matthew Amster-Burton 18:41

right? Like nobody. I think we it's fair to say that literally, nobody in your high school believed that you would go on to host a successful podcast.

Molly 18:51

Right? Nobody would have ever guessed

Matthew Amster-Burton 18:55

now right now. Like I remember back I asked. I asked some of your classmates back then. And they said, What the fuck are you talking about? What

Molly 19:02

do you think we would have thought podcasts were?

Matthew Amster-Burton 19:06

Oh, I think I would have assumed it was related to fishing.

Unknown Speaker 19:09

Oh,

Molly 19:10

I think that's a really good point. Like some sort of a tool for that. You can like keep in your tackle box. If your your fishing rod breaks while you're like out on the river. Okay, I guess.

Matthew Amster-Burton 19:22

Yeah, I think you were voted in your yearbook, most likely to invent a new type of fishing.

Molly 19:28

But anyway, I was just like, God, this world is so strange. I would have done anything to have these girls pay attention to me. This is like it's not like they're paying any attention to me now. No, no, I mean, following people on Instagram doesn't mean you pay someone

Matthew Amster-Burton 19:46

she did.

Molly 19:47

No, she was very kind. But still I you know if I could like go back on the one hand, of course I want to say like that. I wish that like i'd cared less about getting girls who weren't very nice to like me. Sure,

Matthew Amster-Burton 20:00

but I know what I would

Molly 20:02

think it's like a real doggy dog world in middle school and high school and I don't think I would go back there for the world

Matthew Amster-Burton 20:11

map. Oh, yeah, no, of course not. No, this is what I like if I had if I had time machine privileges and and wanted to abuse them. When I was in preschool, this little jerk named Shannon pushed me down. That's our real name. His real name. Yes. Okay. I'm sure I'm sure he turned out to be a nice person. No, probably not. I would go back to that moment when Shannon pushed me down the hill in the rain. So I got all wet. And I would like jump out of the way and push him down the hill.

Molly 20:42

Oh my god. You know what I wish I could do. I think I've talked before on the show about this kid who used to pretty actively bully me in high school. like would you know do the dumb shit where you like stick your foot out to trip somebody?

Matthew Amster-Burton 20:57

Or that's that's pretty aggressive.

Molly 21:00

Oh, he pushed me. He told me he was gonna kill me. I mean, he's he was

Matthew Amster-Burton 21:05

pretty yeah, that's pretty intense.

Molly 21:06

He was terrible. Like a Really? I would say messed up young man. Up to put it lightly. Anyway, cuz I would go back and I would raise so much. Hell, he wasn't even suspended for the things he did to me. But it was because he used to hang out and here I'm going to say it Matthew. I'm going to say it on this powerful podcast we've got I am the tiny Lady Gaga.

Matthew Amster-Burton 21:34

Okay,

Molly 21:35

okay. This young man's name was Lee Harmon. And he used to spend a lot of time in the Office of the Dean David Gorham friend to bullies David Gorham used to let like all the mean dude like

Matthew Amster-Burton 21:51

getting in trouble in there, like just

Molly 21:55

shoot the shit chatting it up with Dean Gorham. Anyway, and so of course, when Lee was threatening me and I reported it to the dean, nothing happened to him because he was like, I don't know, the deans fuck buddy or whatever. I really think that's what was going on. No, but I do think it's really gross when like an authority figure of the school has a whole bunch of the most trouble making white boys gathered around him all the time as like, I

Matthew Amster-Burton 22:26

don't I don't see what the problem is. Anyway, it sounds sounds like you had a cool Dean.

Molly 22:32

Yeah, that's actually what what Lee Harmon Well, that's

Matthew Amster-Burton 22:35

me. Yeah, I want my school administrators to be to be really like chill and laid back and not and you know, just like, you know, if there's some harassment going on, just like Whatever, man,

Molly 22:45

whatever, man here, come into my office have some hard candies, if you know what I mean. Oh, God. All right. So that's what I would go back and do I would go back and raise some serious fucking hand. Hail, hail.

Matthew Amster-Burton 22:59

Hail Hail to you, little little lady guy.

Molly 23:03

In Oklahoma, there was a lot of hail. So I gather up a bunch of hail. And I would go egg, Dean Gorham and Lee harmons houses with a

Matthew Amster-Burton 23:15

question over here that smacked you, is it egging if you throw something?

Molly 23:20

No, I was gonna say I would go hail their houses, you know, hail

Matthew Amster-Burton 23:23

there. Also, if there's a real storm, or houses are already getting hit with hail, so I think maybe you need to like raise the stakes a little and hit them with something worse. That's true. So okay, so you would like you would go back and like, make raise hell for social justice. And I would push a kid, like a five year old kid. Well, it seems like

Molly 23:45

we're both going about the same. We both want the same kind of like retribution, but we're going about it in different ways.

Matthew Amster-Burton 23:53

So I just realized that when you use when you use a time machine, you don't like become the age you were go back to. So it would be like, you know, a 45 year old adult man appearing at this preschool and putting a small child down the hill. And then and then like, exalting in the victory.

Molly 24:13

Actually, what would happen in my case, is that I would go back and I'd like walk around my high school and I would see like 17 year old me and I'd be like, actually, nevermind. I don't really want to get involved like yeah,

Matthew Amster-Burton 24:27

I'm

Molly 24:28

gonna let her figure it out. This is this is too much of a mess.

Matthew Amster-Burton 24:40

That was an uplifting detour.

Molly 24:43

I'm sorry. I'm really having a hard time being funny this week. No, no, I

Matthew Amster-Burton 24:47

think it was it was. It was funny. It was poignant channel this energy into your new album. Oh,

Molly 24:54

am I going as lil cutie Gaga? Yeah, well 41 that's my eight. Okay,

Matthew Amster-Burton 25:01

I like it. Yeah. All right. So let's so back to spring rolls. If you have not made spring rolls or have not made spring rolls recently, I highly recommend it. I was really nervous because I was like, Alright, because the whole reason we got this fryer. Oh no, it's gonna start over again.

Molly 25:21

Oh, no, here we are in the Time Machine.

Matthew Amster-Burton 25:26

That's just go to the future. Like we're always trying to write the past and it never goes, Well, we always end up okay, where should we go monopolies? How about like, way far into the future? How about like the year?

Molly 25:40

It's gonna be so

Matthew Amster-Burton 25:42

hot. In the That's true. But let's let's bring slurpees Oh, okay. Like, like, like, you know, we usually get like the small survey. Let's get like the 32 outs. The big company need it. Okay. Let's go to the year 10,000

Molly 25:57

Oh, wait a minute. I'm not sure that there's going to be anybody there. Well, it's just gonna look like a like Venus or something here like just sort of really hot

Matthew Amster-Burton 26:10

and okay, but alright, but mercury about this. Okay, first of all, like, we can go back, right? It's not like a one way trip on the time machine. Okay, we're gonna go to 10 the year 10,000. Okay, like New Year's Day. 10,000. Okay, we're gonna take a selfie of us in this apocalyptic not even apocalyptic because like, you know, humanity will be like, long buried, just this this beautiful, like, tropical landscape. And we're going to take a selfie with our slurpees our 32 ounce slurpees and we're going to Instagram it.

Molly 26:41

Oh, my God and super excited. You know, by you. If we could actually get together right now in person. I think we could. I don't know, fill up at least a couple days of lockdown time with building a whole set to stage.

Matthew Amster-Burton 26:56

Or I mean, probably see this green screen it.

Molly 26:59

Okay, that doesn't sound like as much fun.

Matthew Amster-Burton 27:01

Okay, dad. Okay. All right, we'll build we'll build out the set.

Molly 27:04

When I was a kid. I had this babysitter sometimes who was like the teenage friend of my parents. And she was like one of those amazing babysitters. Like she actually had fun ideas. And

Matthew Amster-Burton 27:17

oh, yeah, I had one like that. She

Molly 27:19

would come over and she would bring stuff with her like, foam board poster board, like empty shoe boxes, and we would build like, cars for my stuffed animals and stuff. I wonder how awesome she was amazing. I wonder if she's still around. And if she can help us build our set.

Matthew Amster-Burton 27:41

Okay. My cool babysitter. I think we I know we've talked about her before with Christine Abby. Probably the most fun thing I ever did as a young child was she was super into music. She was she was in a series of punk rock bands. And we took the Billboard Top 40 or like they, you know, whatever, the weekly top 40 from the front the radio, and we made parodies of each artist and song title for the entire top 40 we spent hours on it. The only one I get no, I remember one. One full song and artist and then one other song title, the number one at the time. So we could figure out when this was

Molly 28:22

are you looking at is this like Casey? Song or like Billboard charts. Okay,

Matthew Amster-Burton 28:27

so the it was 1984 because number one at the time was borderline by Madonna.

Molly 28:33

Okay, so you were eight or nine years old? Mm hmm. Okay.

Matthew Amster-Burton 28:37

And we call it quart of slime by Parana.

Molly 28:41

Oh my god, you must have thought that was so funny.

Matthew Amster-Burton 28:46

The only other one I remember offhand if we did if not all 40. A lot of them we spent like four hours on this was we're not going to take it by Twisted Sister. I don't remember what the parody name we came up with was for Twisted Sister but I remember the song was beers not good in cake kid.

Molly 29:09

These are brilliant.

Matthew Amster-Burton 29:10

I know. I I wonder if my mom still has the paper somewhere.

Molly 29:16

You know, what was it like cool babysitters in the ad. So I think I've told you before that the same babysitter Who? Who used to bring over all the cool craft supplies. Her name was reesie. She She also I remember this was when the song Amadeus was out. Sure. She told me that that what they were saying was fuck me on the day.

Matthew Amster-Burton 29:39

We've talked about before but

Molly 29:42

anyway, oh man, babysitters.

Matthew Amster-Burton 29:46

Yeah, one time we had. Actress Elizabeth Shue came as a babysitter and we got up to all sorts of adventures. We we went into town

Unknown Speaker 29:56

for a minute

Matthew Amster-Burton 30:04

Okay, let's talk about these spring rolls. I'm sorry, I'm having a really hard time staying on topic I was nervous about rolling them Well, okay, that turned out to be quite simple. Okay, the key is so you put, you put a line of filling like kind of diagonally against one of the corners of the wrapper, you fold over one tip that corners tip, you fold in the sides and you make sure and fold it over a little bit. So you're kind of closing the sides of the envelope. Okay, and then you need to make sure that those sides that you folded in the left and right side are parallel, so that when you roll it up, it doesn't have any like floppy bits at the side. But like the my first one was kind of was kind of very

Molly 30:46

confused by what you're saying. But I will

Matthew Amster-Burton 30:50

do that. Yeah.

Molly 30:52

Okay, go on.

Matthew Amster-Burton 30:52

You're making you're making like a like a little burrito and like rolling it up, like cigar style. Sure. My first one was was kind of funny looking. By the second one, they were great. They were they were like, as good as any I've had.

Molly 31:06

So this sounds way easier than for instance, learning to fold a dumpling

Matthew Amster-Burton 31:10

or is easier than learning to fold like pleat a potsticker

Molly 31:14

anything is easier than learning to play to potsticker that means that like anything now come on Matthew. Yes. And to me,

Matthew Amster-Burton 31:22

I've right right. Yes, that that's the hardest thing. Yes. And then the frying was really easy to you don't need a lot of oil because they're, they're small and you're gonna flip them so you can even like you know pan fry them in half an inch of oil would be fine. I deep fried them in a walk but I didn't have a whole lot of vegetable oil in the fridge. So I ended up using like a cup of oil and it was fine. They cooked in like two to three minutes until you were just going by color. Yeah, okay. Filling was fully cooked. That's that's what I loved so much about this recipe. Like the thing the thing that I'm most fearful of when frying is what if the thing is done on the outside but still raw on the inside? And like I'm just screwed?

Molly 32:00

Yes, Matthew How well does the fan above your your stove work? Like that's a good question.

Matthew Amster-Burton 32:08

I have a placebo fan.

Molly 32:10

So does your house smell like like spring rolls today?

Matthew Amster-Burton 32:13

It doesn't today because I made them on Saturday and today is Monday but it certainly did all Saturday night.

Molly 32:20

Okay, yeah, I don't have a fan at all.

Matthew Amster-Burton 32:24

Oh you do that's the one woman on Instagram

Molly 32:33

because my stove as has as some of our listeners may remember the same way that I have this actually so my dishwasher is back to being sort of janky even though it has jet dry in it.

Matthew Amster-Burton 32:44

Oh no Can you do put in more jet dry

Molly 32:47

my sink is also dripping. So if anybody wants to send me ash and I did learn the other day how to fix the wiring for a light in our closet which

Matthew Amster-Burton 32:59

went out oh that sounds dangerous.

Molly 33:02

I was I was like we're definitely going to need to like shell out for an electrician for this but ash his father is a contractor.

Matthew Amster-Burton 33:09

Okay,

Molly 33:10

and so he was able to help us over the phone that was pretty amazing. I

Matthew Amster-Burton 33:15

don't think I would take a wiring advice over the phone I was there a lot of like, should I cut the blue one or the red one? No, no. It was

Molly 33:25

hard like something it was more like something had come loose so we needed to like tighten something but what I was going to say is as our listeners may or may not know my stove is a like hot point. Like bronze enameled top electric stove with two and a half working burners I say half because one of them doesn't work on high and it's slightly slightly not as hot as the other one. So I basically have two working burners anyway and I don't have a fan Don't you love how people think that people who write about food are interested in food have really fancy stuff.

Matthew Amster-Burton 34:03

Oh, yeah, sure. Yeah. I'm surprised to hear all this I have a I have an eight burner wolf stove. That's it's made of solid platinum. Yeah, right. It has its induction but also it has like gas plasma, it runs on plasma.

Molly 34:23

Ah, you mean your own blood? plasma blood plasma? Yes. Anyway, yeah. So my two and a half burner electric stove sits on top of a countertop in like a wooden box we made for it. Anyway, it gets the job done. two out of the three of us in our household have to stand on a stool to use it. Anyway, but it has no it has no fan anytime are we cook anything that is remotely nearing fried even like even something like making pancakes will make the house smell the entire How smelly pancakes all day.

Matthew Amster-Burton 35:01

Are you deep frying your pancakes?

Molly 35:04

No, but even like cooking a cooking a batter in some fat will result in the smell of the batter all day so my mom is like, my mom is so pricy about stuff like this. Like if she even turns on a burner she like turns on her fan so my house constantly smells like food my mother's house constantly smells like roses and pick the food house over over the flour house I think so too but I do get a little bit tired of like like if I cooked chicken thighs or something oh my god the smell of chicken fat hovers in the house in a way that's sort of nauseating

Matthew Amster-Burton 35:45

I mean maybe maybe you need to like establish some sort of air currents throughout the house using using a system of you know

Molly 35:54

what I should use my social capital as as little lady gaga everyone as right Oh little cutie Gaga there we go well but as many Gaga What was I

Matthew Amster-Burton 36:07

like mini Gaga that's good.

Molly 36:08

Okay great. I should use my social currency as mini Gaga to get myself one of those like free KitchenAid ranges are something that all the that all the the food bloggers were getting back in the day they

Matthew Amster-Burton 36:21

do.

Molly 36:22

Oh, I definitely know a few a few people who were like food blogging peers of mine who totally got like a bunch of KitchenAid equipment, you know, sponsored sponsorships, and they got this stuff for free. To me.

Matthew Amster-Burton 36:36

I got a free rice cooker.

Molly 36:39

Be fair, I know I've gotten some some free stuff.

Matthew Amster-Burton 36:43

Sanyo sent it to me that's pretty cool. It was pretty cool.

Molly 36:47

I've gotten some pretty cool free stuff from this podcast like I once got three cases of Manny joy delivered to my food bank. Yeah, Last summer I got

Matthew Amster-Burton 37:05

I got to do

Molly 37:07

what did you do with yours?

Matthew Amster-Burton 37:09

We kept one and you

Molly 37:12

enjoy your case? No, no one jar because I was gonna say that was 36 jars

Matthew Amster-Burton 37:18

right and gave the rest of the food back. Okay, so I bought spring roll skins from the supermarket but if you'd like to try making them at home, I found a recipe that looks very promising and easy and I will link to that in the show notes.

Molly 37:31

Okay, so what did you dip them in? Or did you dip them

Matthew Amster-Burton 37:35

right so for dinner, nothing like these were these were so well seasoned, you know had such great like, meaty flavor that there is garlic in there like both fresh garlic and garlic powder like and and they were crispy right out of the fryer in the sense that a fryer coughed them up. So they did not need a dipping sauce However, they freeze well, and they reheat well. So he's like cook them all and then frozen and then reheated them in the oven and when I reheated some I made a nuke jam. Okay shot is a Vietnamese dipping sauce slash dressing that consists of fish sauce, water vinegar or lime juice or both sugar chilies and garlic that sounds wonderful. Great and I think it goes so well with spring rolls because a spring roll is dense and rich and flaky and knock jam is very refreshing and and light

Molly 38:35

I was going to ask if the if the author of the recipe since this was Olympia recipe if the author had a suggested dipping sauce

Matthew Amster-Burton 38:43

that was so traditional to the Philippines there is no suggested dipping sauce with the recipe. Okay, there are there are some there are a lot of reviews and comments on the recipe and so like the most the most classic like like American dipping sauce for for spring rolls is like a you know a very like sweet red ketchup bass sweet and sour sauce which is not a bad thing at all.

Molly 39:08

No it's quite it's quite tasty. Yeah, it pushes all the right buttons like like sweet and sour chicken does you know what I mean? It's just like what is not to love about it?

Matthew Amster-Burton 39:17

Yes, but in my limited experience with get togethers with Filipino food and Filipino American people limpiar so that you like you like grab white off the platter and you and you walk around eating yet and there isn't isn't typically a dipping sauce. And in my experience,

Molly 39:35

okay. Okay.

Matthew Amster-Burton 39:35

I'm sure this varies from family to family and event to event.

Molly 39:39

Yes. Is there a safe like a sweet version of yeah.

Matthew Amster-Burton 39:43

Oh, yeah. So I went down a big Wikipedia, rabbit hole. So first of all, I didn't know that that lumpia is the name in both the Philippines and Indonesia whether that gloom pr lumpiang Okay, and the the Filipino ones are more likely to have porque and the Indonesian ones are more likely to have another meat or no meat because there's a large Muslim population in Indonesia. But there are tons of different varieties in both places. In Indonesia, they're often made with hikma, so they're like crunchy on the outside and a different kind of crunchy on the inside, which sounds great. In the Philippines, there is a whole category of desert lupia called twotone. And they can be filled with like sweet sticky rice, sweet potato, all kinds of stuff. And there is a lumpia style called a Dena Mita which I was just like paging through, like Google image search results for Dino meters. It is a stuffed chili pepper so like a hot chili like a medium size. stuffed with like meat or cheese. And then wrapped in Olympia skin and fried this looks that's

Molly 40:53

credible. Oh my god, I think you should make that next.

Matthew Amster-Burton 40:56

I think I should make that What?

Molly 40:57

What kind of chili would you use for it?

Matthew Amster-Burton 40:59

I think I would get like one of those long Korean chili green Korean chilies I think would be really good for that.

Molly 41:06

Oh, that sounds fantastic. Right.

Matthew? I think the shittiest part about this whole lockdown thing for me personally get free

Matthew Amster-Burton 41:15

food at my house

Molly 41:16

and I don't get free food at your house.

Matthew Amster-Burton 41:18

Because I know I miss it too. You know, I

Molly 41:20

you know podcasts are really lucrative and everything. For me the best part of this podcast has always been getting to eat your cooking. Oh,

Matthew Amster-Burton 41:30

wait. Yeah. All right. So that's that's all I have to tell you about spring rolls. Anything else?

Molly 41:34

Let's see here. You know, we haven't talked at all about so does seafood show up much in fried spring rolls?

Matthew Amster-Burton 41:40

Oh, yeah, absolutely. So so like crab crab and shrimp and crab especially. Okay. And like like, you know, chopped shrimp is ingredient in a variety of different dimsum items, including often shows up in spring rolls. Okay. I've tried to remember where where I read that. Crab spring rolls are common and I do not remember but I would I would not be surprised if that was also a dim sum item.

Molly 42:04

Okay, this all sounds fantastic. I also want to go out for Dim Sum now.

Matthew Amster-Burton 42:08

Yeah, I want to make I gotta make the chili one. I'm going to try this.

Molly 42:11

Okay. Ah, man. Okay, so we're gonna we're gonna link to a bunch of different things on the

Matthew Amster-Burton 42:19

Olympia recipe from little cutie pin a 23 a spring roll. wrapper recipe.

Molly 42:27

Maybe we could also link to a recipe for luck charm for anyone who you know who who needs it.

Matthew Amster-Burton 42:33

We could also Oh, I think we should also linked linked to Shao Chang's book Chinese sold Oh yeah, absolutely. On our Instagram ads spilled milk podcast you'll find a picture of the limpia that I made

Molly 42:46

excellent and and at some point in the near future I don't know maybe even the next episode maybe might be about fresh rolls

Matthew Amster-Burton 42:54

Yeah, let's do it. So

Molly 42:55

stay tuned everybody I mean you can you can put away the show for like a week or so but then yeah, you

Matthew Amster-Burton 43:01

can you put us put us away in your in your keepsake box

Molly 43:04

or you know don't even worry about it like we'll be off time traveling anyway, so

Matthew Amster-Burton 43:08

we won't bother you just that's that's true. I mean, unless we are specifically time traveling to bother you as a younger person. Like if if Shannon from from Jones preschool is listening

Molly 43:20

Lee Harmon I'm coming for you man.

Matthew Amster-Burton 43:21

Right

Molly 43:22

David Gorham I'm going

Matthew Amster-Burton 43:24

to get my rotech right everyone everyone is on notice what else we need to tell people facebook.com slash build not podcast we want to hear about your your spring roll experiences. How do you make them What do you like and have you had Have you had the one but the chili pepper?

Molly 43:38

I would also love to know well Oh, wait a minute, I want to see some sort of like a diagram or video of how to roll them like I can't imagine what you're saying based on like rolling a burrito. But I would love to see a video so maybe we could link to that to our producer is Abby circuit tele. And until next time, thank

Matthew Amster-Burton 43:55

you for listening to spilled milk,

Molly 43:57

the show that's fully cooked on the inside and and you don't have to worry about it.

Matthew Amster-Burton 44:06

I'm Matthew Amster-Burton.

Molly 44:09

Eisenberg. I really missed the good old days when we used to sit in a room together and eat food together and he would delight me with your dance moves.