Spam Musubi: Hapa Food

Spam Musubis are probably the most famous hapa food. Go into any self respecting Hawaiian food joint and it has a place on the menu. Go into any Japanese American market and you will see a nice tidy row of Spam, often with musubi makers right next to them.

Why is Spam so ubiquitous in Hawaii? Well during the World War II, it was difficult to transport fresh meat to the soldiers that were there on the Japanese/American war front.  Enter spam. Of course, surplus from the soldiers made their way into civilian kitchens.  Hawaii has a big Japanese American population, so its only natural that they would take the meat and use it in a way most familiar to them: wrapped up in nori and rice.

Now a lot of Americans look down on Spam as being a poor person's food, "mystery meat," trashy food, or generally disgusting canned meat.  Next time you hear someone denouncing Spam, ask them if they have ever actually tried it. Chances are, they actually haven't tried it but they are just parroting a stigma. They are like food racists! I just say don't knock it 'til you've tried it.

The key to Spam is grilling it. Sure you could eat it straight out of the can, but don't. The aspic (meat jelly) that surrounds it is amazing when grilled, but no thank you otherwise.

grilled to perfection

Spam Musubis are simple to make: plop the Spam onto a cutting board, cut into 8 slices, fry them up until they are nice and brown and crispy, and roll up with fresh rice and nori.  A lot of Spam musubi articles insist on a musubi maker, which is totally unnecessary in my opinion. I don't have a lot of space in my kitchen, so I make my musubi by hand, just like my onigiri. Looking at my pictures, some of my spam musubi don't have the super straight sides of the musubis made with makers, but that is easily fixed by focusing on that. (Why bother though?)

I made a couple of variations for fun, since I had some magic red sauce on hand from my recent adventure in downtown Los Angeles. There is another style of Spam musubi where the Spam is not sandwiched in the middle of rice but is on top. I like rice on both sides of my Spam so I can really slather it in sauce and the rice will soak up any extra, but feel free to experiment.  You can also put the teriyaki sauce in the pan while the spam is grilling, and I often do, but today I did not because I wanted to make a teriyaki free variation.

the ingredients!

Spam Musubi: Four Ways

1 can of SPAM
1 pack of nori
Shichimi Togarashi
Furikake
hot chili oil (magical or other)
teriyaki sauce
cooked sticky rice (approx 3 cups for 1 can of spam)

traditional with/without furikake:

roughly spam shaped

the top layer before squeezing it

sprinkled with furikake

Slice the Spam into 8 equal slices and grill until brown and crispy on the outside, then set on a plate to cool. Take a sheet of nori and fold it down the middle to crack it and split into two pieces. Take one piece of the nori and lay about a small handful of warm rice in the middle. Wetting your hands with some water will help the grains from sticking to your fingers. Press the rice firmly into a spam shaped rectangle, adding rice if you feel it is not enough. Now is the chance to sprinkle a generous amount of furikake on top, or leave plain. Brush teriyaki sauce on both sides of the spam, then place on top of the rice. Place another small handful of rice on top of the spam and use your hands to compact it into a nice tidy rectangle. Wrap the nori tightly around the rice and spam and cut the whole thing in half.

Spicy Teriyaki Style:

teriyaki basted

Replace the furikake with shichimi togarashi powder, and baste teriyaki sauce on one side of the spam, and top the other side of the spam with red chili oil.


Spicy Style:
Replace the furikake with shichimi togarashi powder, and brush the spam on both sides with the red chili oil.

My mother was nice enough to help my blogging skills out and get me a camera! While blogging with an iphone camera is doable, it is nice to have a zoom and better quality photos. I guess now I need to stop blogging about her jello eccentricities... or make her some more to eat.

Shichimi below, spicy oil on top!

My new baby!

*Almost all of these pics have the annoying time stamp but don't worry I figured out how to turn it off. I'm not the most technologically advanced so that was a feat!



See Also:
Butter Mochi: Hapa Food
Furikake Chex Mix: Hapa Food