Spam Musubi

recipes November 12, 2017 0 Comments

Spam musubi is a popular snack and lunch food in Hawaii composed of a slice of grilled Spam on top of a block of rice, wrapped together with nori in the tradition of Japanese omusubi. Inexpensive and portable, Spam musubi are commonly found near cash registers in convenience stores all over Hawaii.

I decided to start making these after our 2015 trip to the Big Island once I learned it was some of my wife’s favorite snacks. I’ve learned this from various websites and have since adapted to my own making.

Ingredients

  • 2 cups Tamaki Gold or other uncooked glutinous white rice
  • 3 cups water
  • 1/2 cup rice vinegar
  • 1 tablespoon sunflower oil
  • 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
  • 1/2 cup white sugar
  • 1 can of spam, low sodium if you prefer
  • 4 sheets of seaweed
  • 1/4 cup soy sauce, I recommend low-sodium
  • Furikake, to taste

Instructions

For the rice:

  1. Thoroughly rinse the rice until water runs clear.
  2. Add to rice cooker with the 3 cups of water.
  3. Add sunflower oil to water and rice and let the cooker due the work.
  4. Once rice is done, cool down to room temperature
  5. In a small saucepan, combine the rice vinegar, vegetable oil and 1/4 cup sugar. Cook over medium heat until the sugar dissolves.
  6. Once dissolved, stir into the cooked rice. When you pour this in to the rice it will seem very wet. Keep stirring and the rice will dry as it cools. Set rice aside.

Making the SPAM

  1. In a small sauce pan mix soy sauce and remaining sugar under medium heat until dissolved.
  2. Slice the spam lengthwise and place on plate. Roughly about 8 slices.
  3. Pour marinade over spam on a plate and let soak for 5-10 minutes.
  4. The cooking in frying pan with excess sauce for about 5 minutes on each size or until desired crispness.

Creating and assembling the Musubi’s

  1. I use the large Takamura Sushi Maker. It can be purchased at Marikai Marketplace and probably most Asian markets.
  2. Tip, wet the lid slightly before pressing to prevent sticking. You’ll see what I mean later.
  3. Lay a sheet of nori down and put make on it.
  4. Scoop rice into make and spread it even across and then with the maker lid press to flatten out.
  5. Sprinkle furikake liberally over the rice
  6. Add 2 slices of the spam at opposite ends across bed of rice.
  7. Sprinkle more furikake liberally over the spam
  8. Add another layer of rice and press with lid but this time lift the maker as you push thru to remove it.
  9. Now you should have a nice square on top of your nori.
  10. Wrap one side over like a burrito. Then wrap the overside which should lap. You can use a few grains of rice as the glue to hold the wrapper together.
  11. Cut in half to have 2 musubi’s.
  12. For storing, wrap in plastic wrap to make them both portable and prevent them from sticking to each other or anything else.

Yields: 8 Musubi’s

Photos