Spam Musubi
Published April 7, 2019
Romulo Yanes for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Vivian Lui.
- Total Time
- 20 minutes
- Rating
- Comments
- Read comments
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Ingredients
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons light brown sugar
½ teaspooon mirin (optional)
1 to 2 teaspoons neutral oil, like canola or vegetable
1 (12-ounce) can Spam, cut horizontally into 8 slices
3 sheets roasted sushi nori, cut into thirds crosswise
2 teaspoons furikake
5 to 6 cups cooked short-grain white rice
Preparation
- Step 1
In a small bowl, whisk the soy sauce, sugar and mirin (if using). Set aside.
- Step 2
Lightly coat the bottom of a large skillet with oil and heat over medium. Fry the Spam slices until evenly browned and crispy, 2 to 3 minutes on each side. Turn off the heat. Working quickly to avoid burning, add the soy mixture and turn the Spam slices until evenly coated in glaze. Immediately transfer the Spam slices and glaze to a plate.
- Step 3
To mold the musubi, start by placing a strip of nori, rough side up, on a cutting board or clean work surface. Place a Spam musubi maker mold over it, in the middle, then place a slice of Spam into the mold. (If you don’t have a mold, you can line a clean Spam can with plastic wrap instead, and place a slice of Spam at the bottom.) Sprinkle ¼ teaspoon furikake over the Spam, then fill the mold or can with a generous mound of rice. Press the rice firmly with the musubi maker press or with your hands until it is ¾- to 1-inch thick, adding more rice as needed.
- Step 4
Use the press to hold the rice down with one hand and pull the mold upward to unmold the musubi with your other hand. (If you’re using the Spam can, gently lift the Spam and rice out of the can by gently pulling on both sides of the plastic wrap.) Wrap the nori around the Spam-rice stack, bringing both ends of the strip to the middle, folding one over the other, and flipping it over so the seam is down and the Spam is facing up. Repeat with remaining ingredients. Serve immediately or wrap with plastic wrap to take with you on the go.
Private Notes
Comments
My in-laws from Hawai'i taught me how to make Spam musubi and it is one of my guilty pleasures. To avoid the guilt, don't read the Spam nutrition info. Two helpful hints--yes, use sticky rice, keep it warm as you make the musubi (this helps the nori mold to the rice), and run a wet finger along the nori bottom seam line before you press the seam together --this keeps the nori seam from breaking open. When the guilt hits too hard, I make Spam-less musubi using tofu instead. It'll do. Sometimes.
You no have Rice Cooker Brah?
This recipe is definitely lacking an important step. It needs to have the rice seasoned. About 2 T. Rice vinegar, 1 t. sugar, and salt to taste for a cup of uncooked rice. Remember the salt in the spam and soy sauce is also there. You'll be glad you did.
This was tasty but a complete disaster of preparation and presentation. Obviously need a musubi maker mold because the alternative method they propose was worthless. Couldn't assemble without it falling apart. Maybe also due to me using brown rice instead of a sticky white rice.
Incredible recipe. The sauce takes this from good, to addicting. I made some of these for our overnight work, for some co-workers, and they were blown away. I bet this can be customizable too!
Approach trick is to use a spam tin can as a mold for making the rice, put a piece of plastic wrap in an empty tin push rice in and press so that it is compressed and then pop it out and there is a perfect size piece of rice that will fit the spam slice