The popiah is a humble meal. Scratch. That. It's not humble at all. It requires hours of chopping and grating and slicing and stewing and topping and tailing and tearing (popiah skins, or alternatively hair out of head)
But all this must be done in a kitchen away from possible early guests, early in the morning or you will not be ready by 3.
Carrots cabbage turnip onion garlic leek snow peas peanuts lettuce sweetfloursauce egg Chilli coriander beansprouts.
It's beautiful laid out - a confluence of color and taste and texture. And it's vegetarian!!!!
The best popiah will always be my Ama's but all popiah is great.
To assemble:
One popiah skin. Most people prefer the ones without tears so that sauce does not drip through. However, drippy sauce can be remedied by patching the holes in the popiah skin with lettuce.
Lettuce leaf. Break it's spine to flatten it.
Sweetfloursauce. Peanut. Egg. Bean sprouts. When I was younger this would suffice. (Actually as long as I had the sweet sauce there that was enough I was done I was happy)
Vegetables. The actual point of the whole popiah and it's body and soul. The vegetarian one had taugua inside which sold me I. Love. Tofu.
This is the hardest part - folding it into an edible, practical, sauce tight roll. Beginning from the bottom corner, fold upwards and roll, fold on the two side corners and roll again.
It's harder than it looks. I saw many popiah tacos and popiah burgers and popiah skins sans filling and vice versa on the 2 days of entertaining with popiah.
Most people hold the popiah like my father does - an ergonomically sound method that follows the contour of the hand to feed it into the mouth.
Alternatively there is caveman-eats-burger style ala my brother.
But satisfaction is always guaranteed.
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