Spam musubi is a rice sandwich (musubi) in which the filling is a piece of fried spam.  Spam musubi is very popular in Hawaii.  To see what all the fuss is about, we made spam musubi for lunch, and it turned out to be a very easy and tasty dish.   We followed the instructions at Serious Eats.

An important piece of equipment for making musubi is a rice press, which can be bought on Amazon for less than $10.

Here is how we made 3 servings of spam musubi:

3/8 of a 12 oz. can of Spam, sliced into 3 pieces (i.e. each piece is 1/8 of a can of spam

1-1/2 sheets of nori

1 Tbs. vegetable oil

1 Tbs. sugar

1 Tbs. mirin

1 Tbs. soy sauce

Furikake (Japanese sesame seasoning)

2 cups uncooked Japanese medium grain rice (like Cal-Rose or Nishiki)

Cook the rice in a rice cooker.

Mix together in a small bowl the sugar, mirin, and soy sauce.

Heat a large skillet and coat it with the oil.  Fry the spam slices until lightly browned.  Spoon the sugar/mirin/soy mixture over the spam, and cook until caramelized.  Remove the caramelized spam to a plate.

Wet down a wooden board.  Fill the rice press about 2/3 full with the cooked rice and press down hard  to form a compact half-inch thick layer.  Sprinkle the rice layer generously with Furikake.  Top with the fried spam.  Sprinkle the spam generously with Furikake.  Fill the rest of the rice press with cooked rice and press down hard to form another compact half-inch thick layer.  Remove the musubi from the rice press, wrap with half a sheet of nori, and eat.

The musubi can be made in advance just like a sandwich.  In that case, do not wrap with the nori until you are ready to eat, so that the nori does not get damp and soft.

Musubis can be made with a number of different fillings.  The next time we make a musubi, we will probably make a filling of tuna and Kewpie mayonnaise (a popular Japanese brand).