September 13 is National Kids Take Over the Kitchen Day. Which is a delightful holiday, because if the kids are taking over the kitchen, that should mean I’m not cooking. The reality is, most of them can’t totally take over meals yet, but I’m hoping that if I keep getting them in there and practicing, there will come a day down the road when I can sit back and relax while my kids make me some dinner. A girl can dream…
Although we’re mostly a road-trip family, we took the vacation of a lifetime earlier this year and went to Hawaii with my family. It was magical. And while my kids came back with a love for palm trees and surfing, they also came back with a new appreciation for musubi. You can pick it up all over in Hawaii…at grocery stores, convenience stores…tons of places. And it’s so good. If you’re not familiar with musubi, I highly recommend you try it — just try it once — and see how you like it.
It is, in a nutshell, spam sushi. And it’s fabulous.
The beauty of musubi lies not only in it’s deliciously salty yumminess, but also in the fact that it’s contained in this neat little seaweed wrapper. It’s great for picnics, or school lunches, or after-school snacks. And making musubi is an activity unto itself, which makes it a perfect dish to try on a day when kids take over the kitchen. They’ll have a blast.
You do need a musubi maker, which is relatively inexpensive. I bought one in March and I’ve used it countless times since then. But the rest of the ingredients you should be able to find in your local grocery store (some recipes call for furikake seasoning, and if you keep that on-hand, by all means use it. But I don’t, and I figure it’s better to make this without than not to make it at all.)
And you don’t have to use spam in the middle. You can substitute chopped chicken, or shredded pork, or even diced avocado for the spam — use up any leftovers you have and wrap it all up in this cute little seaweed bundle and enjoy!
How to make musubi
Ingredients:
- musubi maker
- 5 c cooked sushi rice (I tried using other rice, and you really do need the sushi rice because it holds together best)
- 1 package nori (seaweed sheets), cut in half lengthwise
- 1 can Spam
- 6 Tb soy sauce, plus extra sauce for dipping
- 3 Tb sugar
Instructions:
In a small bowl, mix soy sauce and sugar together and set aside. Cut spam into 10 slices, and place in a frying pan over medium heat. After 2 minutes, add soy sauce mixture to the frying pan and continue cooking. Flip spam pieces and cook until the soy sauce mix carmelizes and coats the spam slices. Remove and set slices on a plate.
Lay one piece of nori lengthwise and place your musubi maker in the middle. Fill about 1/4 full with sushi rice and tamp down.
Add one slice of spam and another layer of rice and tamp down again. Remove the musubi maker and wrap the edges of the nori around your rice block.
That’s it! Repeat until your ingredients run out.
*if you’re using other meat or avocado, simply replace the spam in the middle with your meat and follow the rest of the instructions*
Serve with extra soy sauce for dipping. We also like to serve our musubi with pineapple and pretend we’re back in Hawaii. Sigh.
Photos courtesy Laura Falin
For more kids’ activities and easy recipes, you can find Laura at Peace but not Quiet, and on facebook and Pinterest.
