Spam Musubi
- Total Time
- 20 minutes
- Rating
- Comments
- Read comments
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Ingredients
- 2tablespoons soy sauce
- 2tablespoons light brown sugar
- ½teaspooon mirin (optional)
- 1 to 2teaspoons neutral oil, like canola or vegetable
- 1(12-ounce) can Spam, cut horizontally into 8 slices
- 3sheets roasted sushi nori, cut into thirds crosswise
- 2teaspoons furikake
- 5 to 6cups 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.
Season the rice, don’t season the rice…try it both ways then you pick your favorite. What I do a little different from the author is I layer the musubi this way: nori, layer of rice, spam, layer of rice. (Layer if rice is equivalent to half of what’s in the photo. So total same amount of rice, just in halves.) Smoosh it down with the onigiri paddle, then Wrap the nori and moisten one 1/4 inch strip with water to keep it stuck together. I use an onigiri sushi maker so the musubi is snug, nice and neat. If you don’t want to use spam, Portuguese Sausage is ono too.
I used the low fat, low salt spam and the cling wrap and spam can method. These are very tasty and I would do it again and experiment with fillings.
I made this for the first time last night and discovered at the last minute I was out of soy sauce (horrors!). I did have TJ’S Soyaki sauce on hand so I subbed that for the soy sauce. I still added the brown sugar & mirin and it was delicious. Also, if you just want to make a few & don't need lots of rice or, like me, your grocery store inexplicably didn't carry bags of short grain rice: pick up a microwavabke package of shelf stable sticky rice which is the perfect amount for 4 musubi.