Hawaiian adventures with SPAM®
Posted in Food, Travel | By Shelley Gillespie | Tags: Hawaii, Recipe, Romantic Travel, US Domestic Travel
When traveling in Hawaii, you envision soft breezes, sunsets, luaus, and palm trees. One thing that a traveler does not expect is the obsession with SPAM®, not the e-mails, but the canned meat. In one store, they had actually created a giant, boat-shaped display with multi-colored cans of SPAM® as the construction material!Just about everywhere we went, restaurants had something on the menu using SPAM®. Made popular in World War II because of its long shelf life, SPAM® appears everywhere, in many flavors! While the average mainland supermarket may have SPAM® in possibly two flavors, regular and low salt, Hawaiian diets are used to SPAM® in flavors like hickory-smoked, bacon, cheese, oven-roasted turkey… well, you get the idea.
The prevalence of SPAM® occurs especially at “plate restaurants,” the fast food meccas of Hawaii. We tried a plate restaurant for lunch one day. You walk up to the counter, see a menu or overhead listing, place your order and get handed a plate. The plate is usually filled with two large servings of rice, macaroni salad, and SPAM® or another main course.
I can say it was certainly filling, but the rice and macaroni – carbs!! – didn’t do wonders for my waistline. After eating the lunch, I still cannot understand the fascination with SPAM®. Surrounded by water with seafood everywhere, I would think people would love seafood. Novelty, I guess!
Here’s a recipe that offers a quasi-sushi-like (but no vinegar-based sauce) dish called “Musubi.” It seems involved, but it really isn’t hard. Most of the time involves cooking the rice and prepping the sauce.
Hawaiian SPAM® Musubi Recipe
3 cups uncooked short- or medium-grain rice?
4 cups water?5 sheets of sushi nori (seaweed in big squares)?
1 (12-ounce) can SPAM® luncheon meat?
1/4 cup soy sauce?
1/4 cup sugar?
1/4 cup rice wine (mirin)?
Water
Directions:
Wash rice, stirring with your hand, until water runs clear. Place rice in a saucepan with water; soak 30 minutes. Drain rice in colander and transfer to a heavy pot or rice cooker; add 4 cups water. If you don’t have a rice cooker, place rice and water into a large heavy saucepan over medium-high heat; bring just to a boil, reduce heat to low and simmer, covered, for 15 minutes. Turn off heat and leave pan, covered, for 15 additional minutes.
Cut nori in half widthwise. Place cut nori in a resealable plastic bag to keep from exposing the nori to air (exposing the nori to air will make it tough and hard to eat).
Cut Spam® into 8 rectangular slices approximately 1/4-inch thick. In a large ungreased frying pan over medium heat (Spam® has plenty of grease to keep it from sticking), fry slices until brown and slightly crispy. remove from heat, drain on paper towels, and set aside.
In a small saucepan over high heat, add soy sauce, sugar, and rice wine; bring just to a boil, then remove from heat. Add fried SPAM® slices to soy sauce mixture, turning them to coat with the sauce; let SPAM® slices sit in marinade until ready to use.
In a small bowl, add some water to use as a sealer for the ends of the nori wrapper; set aside.
Using a SPAM® Musubi press, place a piece of nori on a plate. Position press on top of the nori so the length of the press is in the middle of the nori (widthwise). The press and the width of the nori should fit exactly the length of a slice of SPAM®. (Note: If you don’t have a musubi maker, you can use the empty SPAM® can by opening both sides, creating a musubi mold.)
Spread approximately 1/4 cup cooked rice across the bottom of the musubi maker, on top of the nori; press rice down with flat part of the press to compact the rice until it is 1/4-inch thick (add more rice if necessary).
Place a slice of SPAM® on top of the rice (it should cover most of the length of the musubi maker). Cover with an additional 1/4 cup cooked rice; press until 1/4-inch thick. remove the musubi from the press by pushing the whole stack down (with the flat part of the press) while lifting off the press.
Fold one end of nori over the musubi and press lightly onto the rice. Wet the remaining end slightly with water, then wrap over musubi and other piece of nori; press down on the other end. cut log into 4 pieces.
Repeat with the other 7 SPAM® slices, making sure to rinse off musubi maker after each use to prevent if from getting too sticky.
Do not refrigerate musubi, as they will get dry and rubbery.
Makes 32 musubi.
Recipe courtesy of: http://whatscookingamerica.net/History/Spam.htm
Note: Mention of SPAM® was not paid for or solicited by the makers of SPAM® or their parent company, Hormel.
Tags: Hawaii, Recipe, Romantic Travel, US Domestic Travel