MarMars' Spam Musubi Recipe

For those that cringe at the thought of spam anything, then this post is not for you, so go away. :) But for those that know how addicting spam musubi can be, stay and drool with me. A few months back, my friends & I were in awe of these breaded spam musubi brought to Ryan & Blenda's baby shower. (I can't recall who made them, but I'll update that bit of info, when I find out.) So, Let's just say, the musubi tray was wiped out in the blink of an eye. I was lucky to literally lunge across the sink & grab the last piece. Oh yes, I had no shame. That spam musubi had my name on it. The spam slices were lightly breaded (probably with Panko) & fried; then wrapped neatly in blocks of white sticky rice and seaweed, then cut halfway on the diagonal; drizzled lightly with a teriyaki type sauce. The crunch texture was the perfect contrast to the soft rice and chewy seaweed. These hefty handfuls were so simple, so yummy, and so perfectly compact. And they left a warm fond memory on all our bellies.

Since then, our groups of friends have gobbled up two more variations of this spam musubi: recently Nelly & Ninette made a batch for Mia's birthday party, non-fried, but the spam was marinated in a soy based mixture...oooh yeah. And when it was my turn to cook for When's d Night Dinner. That time, Ron rigged up his own sushi mold by cutting off the bottom of Spam can, and using a slice of spam to compress the rice down. Worked out pretty good. But, wasn't so neat and even though we pinched down the edges of the can, it was still a bit dangerous sticking our hands into the can. Thankfully, all digits were left intact.
This Saturday, Ron had a hankering for Spamsilog: spam, rice with 2 over easy eggs for breakfast. So of course, I obliged and fed my man exactly that. But, I had other plans for my three slices of spam...I'm sure it's obvious what I had in mind.

And thanks to Ninette, my Spam Musubi turned out perfectly shaped with the brand new plexi-musibi maker. It's so pretty! It cost $11 and I think she picked it up at either Lee Lee's or Mekong Plaza. I love it!

My version is basically a combination of all varieties of Spam Musubi that we've enjoyed the last couple months: Marinated spam, breaded and fried spam, plus the extra touches of scrambled egg and pandesal bread crumbs! (Yes, pandesal bread crumbs, baby. I didn't finish the dozen Manila Bakery pandesal, so, rather than let it rot in the trash bin, I gave it a second life. It's final life ended in my backyard compost bin, courtesy of my buddy Myrna, whose passionate about many things, composting is not one of them, which turned out good for me.)

***Disclaimer, I don't tend to follow recipes, so I think it's funny that I'm posting a recipe here, since I didn't really follow any exact measurements. I just taste, things while I cook, adding more seasoning as I go. Hence, my recipe...it's really a guide...so these measurements are guestimations. Good luck!

MarMars' Spam Musubi
PREP TIME 4 MIN COOKING TIME 10 MIN SERVES 3-4

Spam Marinade
6T Soy Sauce
2T Mirin
2T Vinegar
2T Peanut Oil
2t Sesame Seeds

Whisk all these up.

Slice the spam to the desired thickness. I used the spam slicer (love this! thanks rod!) Marinade the spam for about 5 minutes. Pan fry the spam 'til nice & crispy. Dry on paper towels.

Breaded Spam
1 can of Spam
2-3 Hard Pandesal (crumbled up) - I bought mine from Manila Bakery, but didn't eat them fast enough. So, instead of trashing them, I figured I'd make it into bread crumbs...and whatever I didn't use went into my compost bin.
2 cups Panko breading (just depends, you may need to add more as you go)
2 egg whites (whisked)
2 cups flour

Mix the Pandesal crumbs with the Panko breading. Lightly cover each fried spam with flour. Quickly dredge in the whisked egg whites, then quickly coat in the Pandesal/Panko mixture. And fry until browned. Set aside on paper towel.

Scrambled Eggs
2 whole eggs
3 T Mirin

Whisk the eggs & mirin thoroughly. Pan fry on low heat. The finished scrambled egg should be very thin. Set aside.

Sticky Rice
1c White Rice (recommend Calrose)I had Jasmine on hand.
2T Sweet Saki (optional)
1T Sugar (optional)
1T Furikake (optional)

Mix the above ingredients together. Set aside.

And, of course you'll need a bag of Nori. I just eyeballed to make sure the Nori equaled the length of the musubi and made the Nori as long as I'd need to wrap around the musubi. So, it will vary, depending on how much rice you like, if you do a single layer or double layer of rice.

Time to Assemble the Musubi

You will need the musubi mold

Or if you want to go MacGyver style, carefully remove the bottom of the Spam can. Use a nose head plyer and pinch down any sharp edges. On our first attempt, we did this...but still got nicked. So, thank you Ninette for the $11 upgrade!

Here's a series of photos showing how I assembled the musubi:

To seal the nori, just dap lightly a wet fingertip along one edge of the nori, then fold. And gobble it up, like me, I ate as I finished wrapping.











Now, if you'd like to try out another Spam Musubi recipe, by all means go for it, there's a multitude of ways to personalize your own Spam Musubi experience. Here's just a few that you might like to try by: Cooking Cute, Rashad Maiden, What's Cooking America, Kathy YL Chan, and a YouTube vid by Single Guy Chef showing the macguiver style use of a can of spam as the mold. This last method is not recommended for the accident prone chef.