Spam love
Posted: November 5, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »
Yup, I must be in Hawaii, where residents consumer the most Spam per capita in the United States. Here, you can find Spam on the menu of Burger King and McDonalds, and Spam musubis in every case of pre-made food. Spam is everywhere!
For my nephew Trevor’s 3rd birthday, my sister made her first attempt at making Spam Musubi. We did an informal survey of Spam Musubi-making tips. Musubi, typically refers to a riceball wrapped in nori (seaweed). Spam Musubi can be seen in various formats: like a nigiri sushi – rice on bottom, Spam on tip secured with a strip of nori, or like a sushi roll, with the Spam nestled between layers of rice, and enclosed in a sheet of nori. To make roll-type of musubo, you will need a Spam Musubi maker – which is just a rectangular rice press. They are sold in single and double size. A single will accomodate one slice of Spam, a double will hold two slices of Spam laid end to end.
We discovered that all measurements, ingredients and instructions for Spam Musubi are not exact, it all depends on your taste preferences.
A popular Spam-cooking recipe seems to be frying the spam with shoyu (soy sauce) and mirin (sweet Japanese rice wine) – other variations include sugar vs mirin, or just using teriyaki or oyster sauce. Other ingredients for Spam Musubi, may include furikake (japanese condiment – with flakes of nori – and can also include some sort of dried fish flakes, sesame seeds, and salt and sugar + MSG), eggs, and kimchee. Oh the possibilities!
Since this would be served to a soccer team of boys 5 yrs and younger, we went plain and simple – just plain fried Spam and rice wrapped with nori sheets.
We cut the low sodium Spam into approx 1/4-1/2″ slices and threw them into a non-stick pan with no oil and cooked on medium heat. Since Spam is already pre-cooked, the length of time you cook depends on your preference of texture. Some we lightly cooked, some had a nice crunchy char on the outside.
We centered the nori into the Musubi Maker. Then add a layer of rice on the bottom, tap down with the Musubi Maker insert to even out.
Place fried pieces of Spam end to end, then follow up with another layer of rice.
Tap down with the insert, and push entire musubi out of the mold. Fold the sides of nori over the top. You can moisten the ends to “seal” Give it a quick press around to make sure it all holds together. Then slice.
After the soccer game, we sang Happy Birthday to Trevor and the boys devoured the Spam Musubi and other treats.
I would say, our first attempt at Spam Musubi was a smashing success!
