photo by Daniel Lane

Musubi in Hawaii

Last week, I wrote a cookbook review for The Hawaii Book of Rice. Today’s post is related, because I’m including a recipe from the book called Creamy Korean-Style Musubi. The cheap and savory snack can be found under warm lamps in grocery stores and gas stations island-wide.

It took me three years to try musubi because it has SPAM in it. After reading Fast Food Nation, by Eric Schlosser, and The Meat You Eat by Ken Midkiff and Wendell Berry, I was put off from factory farmed meat. And I am fully aware that SPAM is loaded with cheap, factory farmed meat. So, I didn’t eat it.

Our First Musubi Experience

But Dan has fond childhood memories of SPAM, and once we moved here, I’d catch him glancing at the wall of tinned meat stacked on the grocery store shelves. He even memorialized it in his own photographer way.

One day while shopping for groceries, we felt a cavernous hole in our stomachs. The musubi called to Dan, so we grabbed two of the warm, shrink wrapped bundles and headed for the cash register.

In the jeep, we cautiously peeled back the price label, pried open the plastic wrap, and took our first bite. The clouds parted, light shone through the dirty windshield, and angels sang. This is food of depravity. Fluffy rice, wrapped around seared SPAM, spread with a teriyaki sauce and wrapped in nori. It’s tasty, portable, filling and cheap. I instantly became a fan.

According to the book Kau Kau: Cuisine & Culture in the Hawaiian Islands, “You can find it at every McDonalds, Burger King and 7-Eleven in the archipelago.”

SPAM in Hawaii

During World War II, fresh meat was scarce and strict fishing regulations were imposed under martial law. SPAM Classic was available, affordable and didn’t need refrigeration. The high salt content kept it from spoiling, and it quickly became a favorite of plantation workers, whose packed lunch sat in the hot sun as they labored.

Working-class meals were stretched when SPAM was cubed, cooked and added to vegetables such as cabbage or string beans, and served with steamed rice.

Onigiri is a Japanese snack made of steamed, white rice wrapped in nori. In Japan it’s stuffed with pickled plum known as ume; salted salmon; dried, fermented and smoked skipjack tuna; an edible kelp called kombu; or tarako, Alaskan pollock.

Hawaii’s plantation culture included people from Hawaii, China, Korea, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Japan. So it was a natural evolution from Onigiri to SPAM musubi.

Making Creamy Korean-Style Musubi

The Hawaii Book of Rice by Cheryl Chee Tsutsumi. Daniel Lane photo

This is the first appetizer in The Hawaii Book of Rice, and it’s an upscale version created by Kent Thompson. It doesn’t matter where you live, if you have access to SPAM, Kim chee, and nori, you can make this snack. It makes 12 musubi, so it’s perfect for pot luck, or a large family dinner.

The sweet, caramelized SPAM, combined with Kent’s Kalbi Sauce, and the spicy kim chee added wonderful elements of sweet, salty, spicy, soft, creamy and crunchy. I used the leftover kalbi sauce in a stir-fry later in the week, and I think it would make tasty base for a salad dressing.

These musubi will definitely be made again and again, and to get over my aversion to SPAM, I will try replacing it with cooked fish, chicken, ground beef, or short ribs. I just made a recipe for pickled onions, which would make a zesty replacement for the kim chee.

Musubi Mold. Marta iPhone photo

Before I made them, I ordered a cheap plastic musubi mold.

From start to finish, the musubi took 30 minutes to make. As the rice cooked, I set the cream cheese out so it could come to room temperature. I chopped three-quarters of a 12-ounce jar of hot kim chee before adding it to the rice mixture.

To assemble, I sat the mold in the center of a cutting board. I filled the mold halfway with the rice mixture, which was a generous scoop using a rice paddle, and it made all 12 equal in size. After I pressed the rice mixture down, I passed the cubes to Dan, and he rolled them up.

These are Dan’s notes:

• Put one cup of warm water in a bowl and place nearby
• Place rice cubes one-half inch from the edge of the nori
• Dampen fingers with water and moisten the entire sheet of nori
• Fold in 1/2-inch tab first, then the rest

“The nori is brittle when it comes out of the package,” he said. “Since it was damp, it came together nicely. And the heat from the warm rice caused it to ‘shrink-wrap’ around the rice.”

Creamy Korean-Style Musubi

by Kent Thompson

“I really like the mayonnaise-rice combination. One day, as I was experimenting with a new musubi (rice ball) recipe, it occurred to me that a cream cheese-rice paring would be even better, especially spiced up with kim chee. Taste this musubi and I think you’ll agree I was right!”

Creamy Korean-Style Musubi. Daniel Lane photo

3 cups uncooked rice
3 cups water
1, 12-ounce can SPAM
Kent’s Kalbi Sauce (recipe follows)
1, 8-ounce cream cheese, softened
4 cups drained won bok kim chee (traditional Korean side dish of celery cabbage, or makina, pickled in a garlic, red pepper and ginger sauce)
5-6 sheets nori (dried seaweed), cut in halves

Cook rice in the 3 cups water. Cut Spam into 10 to 12 slices. Fry SPAM until browned on both sides. Add Kent’s Kalbi Sauce a little at a time. Continue to cook SPAM until nicely caramelized on both sides.

Remove from heat. Stir cream cheese into warm rice and mix well. Chop 2 cups of the kim chee and add to rice; reserve the remaining 2 cups. Press a generous scoop of the rice mixture into a musubi mold. Top with a layer of reserved kim chee and a slice of SPAM. Press down, then remove from the mold and wrap in nori. Repeat with the remaining ingredients. Makes 10 to 12 musubi.

Kent’s Kalbi Sauce

1/2 cup shoyu (soy sauce)
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 tablespoon honey
3/4 teaspoon minced garlic
Thai sweet chili sauce to taste
sesame oil to taste

Combine ingredients and stir will to dissolve sugar.