Some time ago Honey and I were exploring one of the local shopping malls. This mall, in fact, furnished us with the inspiration for the previously mentioned Birthday Duck Feast. The megamart there carries geese, duck, and pig offal as a matter of course. In addition to this wondrously stocked emporium, the mall is home to a Hawaiian bbq joint. Just about everything there is fried, or marinaded in a sweet sauce. It's fantastic! I even got them to halve the rice and double the macaroni salad. My lord! Honey and I began to frequent the place, and on one of these trips my roommate Sailor Moon (don't ask me, she chose the nickname) and I convinced him to try the spam musubi.
Generally, Honey is a very sensible person, the kind of guy who likes his warm, comfy, ugly sweaters and finally admits that they are ugly when he sees his partner (ie: me) wearing them. Those sweaters have now been donated. Honey likes things his way, but is willing to see reason.
When I proposed sharing an order of spam musubi I knew the greatest obstacle would be getting him to try it. Once he consented I knew he would enjoy it. Sailor Moon encouraged him and modeled the correct response by ordering a portion for herself. Honey gave me a skeptical side eye, but put in the order.
A few days later he called me.
“I went to Costco and I did a terrible thing.”
“Oh dear. What did you do?”
“Guess.” Honey is also the kind of guy who ages rib eye primals in his home refrigerator. What in the world could he have gotten himself into at Costco?
“Uhm...” then I started to get excited, “You bought a whole frozen lamb!”
“No, I bought spam.”
“What? You got spam at Costco!? How big is Costco spam?”
“8 cans.”
“You got an 8 pack of spam?” I started cackling in that way which indicates I have absolutely no sympathy for his plight.
“Yes,” he sounded ashamed.
“Don't worry,” I said, “I'll help you eat it. Sailor Moon will too.”
Technique:
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- 4. Steam 2 cups of short grain rice according to package directions. You do have a rice steamer, right? Right?
- 5. When the rice is ready you may scramble the eggs. Lightly salt the eggs and take off the heat just before they are completely done. The residual heat will finish cooking them.
- 8. Prepare your mise en place. By now the rice should have cooled enough to be handled. Set up all your ingredients for musubi assembly. Take out 4 sheets of nori and cut them in half.
- 9. Assemble the musubi! Lay down a piece of nori, then place a spam slice in the middle. You will notice that it fits perfectly. Coincidence? I think not. Lovingly spoon some musubi sauce on top of the spam. Wet your hands and pack some rice into an oblong shape. You decide how much you want. I find the spam needs to be balanced out by the other ingredients so I am a bit generous with the rice. Place the rice down on the spam. Cut some pieces of fried egg and arrange on the rice. Wrap the nori around the stack using some grains of rice to seal the wrapper closed. Plate seam side down. Repeat.
- 10. Share musubi with your own Honey. It's like a Japanese breakfast burrito! Everybody loves breakfast for dinner.