born and raised in hawaii, spam musubi is a classic treat that ive turned many of my round eye spam fearing friends on to

if you’ve been to hawaii you are familiar with spam musubi. everyone has their own method of making it, since my friends enjoy my version i’ve decided to share it. i see a lot of people who cook their spam in shoyu (soy sauce) but i prefer using a marinade. i don’t usually make it with tamago (sweet egg) but sometimes i do.

Ingredients:

• 1 can spam (i use 25% less sodium)
• 1 pack sushi nori (dried seaweed)
• 3 cups of cooked japanese sticky rice (sushi rice or sticky medium grain)
• 1 cup shoyu (i use to prefer kikkoman or aloha shoyu, aloha has a much higher sugar concentration, kikkoman is salty)
  

  i have gotten several “2 cups???” response. i modified it to say 1 cup. i generally use 1-2 cups simply because when im done marinating the spam i do not throw the marinade away. I will generally use it once or 2x again for either beef and chicken (i will toss it after i put chicken in it).

• 1/2 cup brown sugar (use more if you prefer a sweeter soy base)
• 3 cloves garlic minced
• 1 bunch of scallions diced
• 1-2 tablespoons ginger shredded
• 1-2 teaspoon sesame seed oil
• 1 serrano pepper minced (if you don’t like spicy don’t use this)

Instructions (marinade & spam prep):

1. In a medium sized bowl mix Shoyu, sugar and stir until sugar is dissolved.
2. add garlic, scallions, ginger, pepper, and sesame seed oil to the marinade and stir to mix together.
3. slice spam into 10 slices one way then cut across other way to form 20 square pieces.
4. add spam to bowl and allow it to marinate for at least 4-6 hours.
5. fry spam in pan.

Instructions (tamago):

1. beat 4 eggs in bowl, add 1-2 tablespoons of sugar (or as much or little as you like for taste) .
2. fry egg in pan with oil, don’t scramble or overcook.
3. pat oil off egg and chop into squares similar to the spam size.

Instructions (creating the musubi):

Some people use the actual spam can to shape the rice and spam but i find that messy. i have on a few occasions just used my hand, also messy. you can easily online or at most asian supermarkets buy a “spam musubi” maker. it looks like a rectangle. I have both a wooden and plastic one and tend to use the plastic one more as it just seems to be easier and faster. some makers are as large as 1 piece of spam, some as large as 2. i have the large one. all this really does is press the rice into compact rectangle shape.

1. use spam musubi maker to make enough rice squares as you have spam. some people use a lot of rice others less. i like to use about as much rice as equal to or double the size of the spam.
2. cut the nori to whatever size you like. i prefer my nori to be the same width as my musubi.
3. place rice square on nori, then the spam, then the egg. “roll” the stacked musubi to be wrapped.

I have been meaning to make this post for quite some time. I took the pictures many months ago but as usual, never got around to it. several people have asked me how i make my curry so i decided to take the time to put a step by step instruction.

Ingredients:

• 3 cups steamed sticky (japanese/sushi) rice
• 1/2 large onion (sub: 1 medium)
• 2 large potatoes (sub: 4-5 small-medium)
• 3 large carrots (sub: 4-5 small-medium)
• 2- 4 garlic cloves (use as little as you want, joel and i love garlic)
• 16oz cubed beef/chicken/pork/fish (i prefer beef)
  • 1/2 cup flour
  • 1 tbsp crushed salt
  • 1 tbsp ground pepper
• 3 cups water
• 1 box S&B Golden Curry Roux – 3.5oz (i use hot)

Instructions – Vegetable Prep:

1. Prep your vegetables. cube potatoes and slice carrots (i prefer carrot ovals).

2. soak carrots and potatoes in 2 cups of water. this prevents the potatoes from oxidizing and turning brown. you will use this water later so don’t throw out. the water collects the starch from the potatoes so its good for a natural thickener for the curry.

3. halve your onion then cut cubed/square slices.



4. dice garlic

5. cook your rice. (hopefully you have a rice cooker, and if you don’t, you already know how to steam your own rice.. if you don’t, learn how. if you use uncle bens or any instant rice you deserve to be shot)

Instructions – Meat Prep:

1. in a large bowl mix the dry ingredients: 1/2 cup flour, 1 tbsp crushed salt, 1tbsp ground pepper.

2. in a frying pan heat a few tbsp’s of oil (olive or vegetable). add cubed meat into dry mix and coat it. do not put it all in at once, the meat will soak up too much flour if you do it this way. coat a few pieces and sear/brown them quickly on both sides. don’t try to cook all the meat at once, this will diminish the heat in the pan and make it harder to sear the outside. do a few pieces at a time for best results.




3. place the meat aside to rest. meat will continue to cook and tenderize itself as it settles.

Instructions – Mixing & Cooking Curry:

1. heat to medium-high a tbsp of vegetable oil in a large pot. add cubed onions and a pinch of salt and ground pepper. saute for about a minute.

2. add garlic to onion. i add the garlic later because garlic burns a lot quicker. saute for a few minutes until slightly brown.

3. add rested seared meat and mix. mix and saute for a minute or 2, stirring very frequently.

4. with a strainer, pour the 2 cups of water from the soaking potatoes and carrots into the pot (don’t add vegetables yet just water).

5. allow water to come to a quick small boil.
6. break apart the curry roux into smaller pieces and disperse them through the pot evenly. constantly mix your water to allow the roux to melt and form the gravy. make sure you’re constantly stirring else the curry will start to burn and stick to the bottom and you will have chunks of curry roux not blended well.



7. the curry will appear very thick and boil, add the remaining 1/2-1 cup of water and stir well. it might appear that its not enough water and the curry is ridiculously thick. not to worry. DO NOT ADD more water as it will water down the taste of your curry. the vegetables will add a lot of water once its cooked in the curry.

8. once the curry is nicely mixed and thick reduce heat to low-medium add the carrots and potatoes. it is not necessary to mix the curry at this point. You want to keep the meat on the bottom just add vegetables to the top and with your mixing spoon press it down to soak under the curry.

9. be sure to cover your curry to prevent all the water from evaporating. cook on low-medium heat for about 10 minutes stirring every few minutes to keep the curry from burning on the bottom. after about 10 minutes reduce heat to low.
10. at this point allow your curry to stew on low for 1-2 hours. you can check on your curry as often as you want to stir. i stir every 10 minutes or so. stewing allows the meat to become extremely tender which i find very important especially when using beef. when using other meats you don’t have to stew for nearly as long.

when your meal is ready you will find that the vegetables added a rich amount of flavorful water to the curry and its not as thick as it was before. the flour in the beef also adds to the thickness and you don’t have to add any cornstarch. i try to avoid cornstarch as much as possible as i find it adds more of a gelatinous texture instead of a rich creamy texture.

i usually eat curry in a bowl, a scoop or 2 of rice on the bottom and i pour my curry over, but i usually serve to others on a plate.

mmm now go make curry! 

i am by no means a chef or pasty chef of any kind but i do love to cook and bake nonetheless.  i have owe’d joel "obligation cupcakes" for some time now and finally decided to make them.  we decided on red velvet cupcakes with a whipped butter cream cheese frosting.

red velvet makes me think of christina so in honor of her and of course joel since they are his obligation cupcakes, i took some pictures to share.

Okay yah so — i suck at this blog thing apparently.  Every time i come up with something i want to blog about i never do it.  I really need to discipline myself to take out a few minutes just to do it.  birthday resolution. anyway..

everyone has been posting simpsonized versions of themselves around lately and i’ve even played with the tool myself, but after my friend Nina made one of herself and Chad and put it on her blog, the likeness was so great to see i decided to copy and do the same so i could share with her.

easiest way to share.. is to post here. this is joel and i as simpsons.

so that’s it, you try it and share

yah so.. i kept wanting to update a post but i wanted to update the pictures along with the posts.. so i finally have all the pictures now so ill actually.. make a few extra posts with pictures!

guess i should fix my gallery too.

its been a pretty damn busy time since my last post so ill make it easy!

• overcame stomach flu
• saw coldplay live at verizon amphitheater
• celebrated my birthday with great friends
• will missed my birthday because he was carjacked due to his other crappy friends
• reactivated my wow account
• realized that wow still isn’t fun
• I’m still not any nicer. i still hate everyone
• started my japanese class
• learned and memorized all my hiragana characters
• capable of writing japanese words and sentences phonetically
• bought a new easel that doesn’t suck
• finished sam’s painting
• bought dungeon siege 2 to play with ppl i like
• capable of utilizing student discounts
• bought a new tumi bag for schoolbooks
• cut down drastically on caffeine
• eating a lot more healthy
• hung out with my sister while she visited for labor day weekend
• have 2 new friends i really like that are female
• still waiting for my wheels to come in from japan
• cleaned out my tivo and added a ton of new shows for fall lineup
• completely caught up on old tivo shows
• still hate driving in monday morning traffic from irvine
• joel now owns 3 pairs of jeans he wears regularly
• bryans moving out
• i like my life
• mom wong went in for surgery to get her gall bladder removed
• tiff gave me gir for my birthday
• hoping for new action/adventure or rpg multiplayer games to be released and not suck

so. thats kinda it. in no particular order. now i need to make a list of things i need to accomplish. pictures will be up soon.