Ditch the hand-held classic and enjoy this deconstructed, yet elevated, Spam favorite!
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1994. My mother takes me to a friend’s barbecue at the park. Grilled Spam is an appetizer, and gets passed around the group. My mother shudders, backing away slowly.
2011. I’m working at a fish taco shack near the North Shore of O‘ahu, Hawaii. Spam gets served every which way on the island: with eggs, as a sandwich, on crackers as a snack, fried with broccoli as an entree. My mother’s fear courses through my veins, and I block Spam’s every attempt at entering my digestive tract.
2022. I’m teaching high school English in San Francisco, and the Japanese Club puts on formidable fundraisers every year to bankroll their 3 week homestay in Japan. Car washes, dance recitals and snack grams helped the money flow in, but the most popular cash cow was their monthly Spam musubi sale. Platters and platters of Spam musubi were marched around the hallways, only to be immediately purchased by the 2,000 starving teenagers with a bottomless pit for a stomach. Numerous students brought me Spam musubis over the years, and after a while, I couldn’t fight it anymore. And I became hooked. The filling snack of rice and Spam cocooned in a seaweed wrap almost conjured up tastes of sushi, and it became the perfect after-school pick-me-up.
Spam musubi’s origins are murky; some say they were birthed in the United States’ internment camps for Japanese-origin citizens during World War II. Others say that they were invented by plantation workers in Hawaii. What is definitely known is that by the 1980s, Mitsuko Kaneshiro was selling 500 Spam musubis a day out of the Honolulu City Pharmacy, and the rest is history.
This recipe takes the classic, hand-held Spam musubi and turns it into the modern favorite, the bowl. Steamed rice, already a fan favorite, soaks up the mirin for a subtly delicious tang and sweetness. The salty soy sauce and sweet brown sugar complement each other for a perfect salty/sweet combination. The richness component is upped once the mayonnaise is added, followed by egg and Spam. Furikake adds the final crunch, and you have all the makings of a delicious and hearty meal.
Is This Spam Musubi Bowl Healthy?
Spam is not the healthiest of foods, being rich in fat, cholesterol and sodium. Similarly, soy sauce is salty, and mayonnaise is a rich and calorie-heavy condiment, which usually contains a little salt, too. That said, this isn’t a meal you’re likely to be eating every day. If desired, you could opt for a light mayo, a low-sodium soy sauce, and include a little less Spam in your meal.
What Exactly Is Spam?
Spam is a mixture of pork shoulder and ham, bound together with salt, sugar, water, sodium nitrate and potato starch. Hormel Foods Corporation introduced Spam to the world in 1937 and it became a household name after World War II. Ken Daigneau won $100 in a naming competition, coming up with Spam, rumored to be a contraction of “spiced ham”.
FAQs & Tips
The rice can be made ahead of time, but other than that, you want a Spam musubi bowl to be freshly prepared. Warmed rice and piping hot Spam, freshly mixed together with seasonings and sauces. Once the Spam musbi bowl has been assembled, it’s best eaten straight away.
Yes. For the busy individual who wants a quick and easy Spam musubi bowl after work, or wants to make a series of hand-held versions for snacks, investing in a rice cooker will up your kitchen game considerably. With Spam musubi alone, a rice cooker will give you perfectly cooked rice each and every time, and will be kept warm while you wash the car, make your millions or get lost in a Wikipedia rabbit hole.
Avocado makes a great addition to this bowl, as does a scattering of red pepper flakes (or even Japanese seven spice!) If you fancied shaking things up a little more, swap out the Spam for some cooked cubes of salmon instead.
Serving Suggestions
While this Spam musubi bowl is pretty much a complete meal already, you can always add some fresh sides like this Sunomono Salad or even some Avocado Sushi Rolls. To keep the Hawaiian theme going, it has to be Butter Mochi for dessert, and perhaps a Blue Hawaiian cocktail to round things out.
Spam Musubi Bowl
Ingredients
Instructions
Nutrition
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