This cheap, easy-to-make, filling, and portable snack is perfect for when you have a busy day out in the city and need to pack an easy lunch! All you’ll need to make it are a frying pan and a rice cooker.

Ingredients:

  • Spam (1 can will be enough for several days’ worth, or if you’re cooking for a group)
  • Sushi rice (a few cups, depending on how much you’re making– I usually eyeball it and use leftovers to make fried rice)
  • Soy sauce (a few tablespoons)
  • Nori
  • Furikake

Instructions:

  • Rinse your rice and get it started in the rice cooker (or take your chances with a pot of water; I am terrible at this and so rely totally on technology)
  • Slice the spam into roughly 1/4 in. thick slices
  • Either throw it in a ziplock bag with the soy sauce (and anything else you feel like adding) to marinate for a while, or just put it in the pan with the soy sauce (this is what I usually do, since I’m lazy)
  • Fry until golden brown/just starting to char a little (depends how crispy you like it, but for the love of God don’t undercook it because it will taste terrible)
  • Get your nori sheets laid out on a cutting board, they should be close to the same length as one slice of spam and several times as wide (figuring out exactly how much is needed to wrap one musubi may take some trial and error)
  • Mold your rice into rectangular prisms, the same length and ~4 times as thick as a slice of spam (you can do this with your fingers, improvised devices, or dedicated musubi mold presses that are sold online)
  • Sprinkle some furikake onto the rice, then place a cooked spam slice on top
  • Fold the nori sheet up to wrap the whole thing up like a little package; you can use a bit of water or a few dampened rice grains like glue to seal it up if necessary

If you’re cooking for a group, it can be helpful (and also fun) to turn this into a sort of assembly line process with everyone handling on stage. If you’re just cooking for yourself, musubi travel very well, and will certainly be better than almost any food you’d otherwise get on a plane or a train.

A pile of musubi– this is roughly what they should look like when you’re done!

cooking via bwarchives