Hawaiian themed foods

     I'm almost caught up with all the recipes that I have been making!  Today I want to talk about two Hawaiian themed food ones; spam musubi and kalua pig.  We had/made both for the first time at my Hawaiian-themed 30th birthday party.  The spam musubi we had for lunch on monday and the Kalua pork we made for Pete for his birthday dinner in December.  Let's start with the spam musubi.
     This recipe comes to me thanks to my friend Lani Mitchel.  She brought over spam musubi for my party.  It had been years since I had had spam, so I was a little leery.  However, we absolutely loved the stuff and couldn't stop eating it!  She gave us the recipe and I have been meaning to try it ever since (especially since we had all the ingredients at home [or so I thought]).  Here is the link she sent me http://whatscookingamerica.net/History/Spam.htm

 Recipe Type: Appetizer, Sandwich, Snack Food, Spam
Cuisine: HawaiianYields: 32 Musubi Rolls
Prep time: 45 min

Ingredients:

3 cups uncooked Japanese medium-grain sushi rice *
4 cups water
5 sheets of roasted-seaweed (Nori)**
1 (12-ounce) can Spam Luncheon Meat
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup rice wine (mirin)
Water

* Only use Japanese medium-grain sushi rice in sushi making. It is a medium-grained rice and gets sticky when it is cooked. Long-grained American rice will not work because it is drier and doesn't stick together.

** Roasted-Seaweed (Nori) - Sheets of thin seaweed which is pressed and dried. As a general rule of thumb – good Nori is very dark green, almost black in color.


Preparation:
Wash rice, stirring with your hand, until water runs clear. Place rice in a saucepan with water; soak 30 minutes. Drain rice in colander and transfer to a heavy pot or rice cooker; add 4 cups water. If you don't have a rice cooker, place rice and water into a large heavy saucepan over medium-high heat; bring just to a boil, reduce heat to low and simmer, covered, for 15 minutes. Turn off heat and leave pan, covered, for 15 additional minutes.

Cut nori in half widthwise. Place cut nori in a resealable plastic bag to keep from exposing the nori to air (exposing the nori to air will make it tough and hard to eat).
Cut Spam into 8 rectangular slices approximately 1/4-inch thick. In a large ungreased frying pan over medium heat (Spam has plenty of grease to keep it from sticking), fry slices until brown and slightly crispy. remove from heat, drain on paper towels, and set aside.
In a small saucepan over high heat, add soy sauce, sugar, and rice wine; bring just to a boil, then remove from heat. Add fried Spam slices to soy sauce mixture, turning them to coat with the sauce; let spam slices sit in marinade until ready to use.
In a small bowl, add some water to use as a sealer for the ends of the nori wrapper; set aside.
Using a Spam Musubi Press, place a piece of nori on a plate. Position press on top of the nori so the length of the press is in the middle of the nori (widthwise). The press and the width of the nori should fit exactly the length of a slice of Spam. (Note: If you don't have a musubi maker, you can use the empty Spam can by opening both sides, creating a musubi mold.)

1. Spread approximately 1/4 cup cooked rice across the bottom of the musubi maker, on top of the nori.
   
2. Press rice down with flat part of the press to compact the rice until it is 1/4-inch thick (add more rice if necessary).
   
3. Place a slice of Spam on top of the rice (it should cover most of the length of the musubi maker).
   
4. Cover with an additional 1/4 cup cooked rice; press until 1/4-inch thick.
   
5. Remove the musubi from the press by pushing the whole stack down (with the flat part of the press) while lifting off the press.
   
6. Fold one end of nori over the musubi and press lightly onto the rice. Wet the remaining end slightly with water, then wrap over musubi and other piece of nori; press down on the other end. cut log into 4 pieces.

Repeat with the other 7 Spam slices, making sure to rinse off musubi maker after each use to prevent if from getting too sticky.

Do not refrigerate musubi, as they will get dry and rubbery.


Makes 32 musubi rolls.

     Please note that the pictures are not mine and came with the website.  I wonder what that yellow stuff is on it.  Anyways, I discovered a couple of difficulties when I made it which I overcame.  1) I don't have rice wine!  I thought I had had it because I have rice wine vinegar, but didn't realize the recipe called for rice wine until I was already in the middle of making it!  Oops... Well, I googled a replacement for rice wine and gin was one of the answers.  Dry sherry also came up, but I had gin not sherry so there you go!  It seemed to work just fine as the sauce came out delicious and how I remembered it.  2) I don't have a spam musubi press.  They mention using the can, but they don't really say how to do it.  I thought that it wouldn't be a problem because I would roll it up like sushi.  It wasn't really, I just had to cut the spam in half lengthwise.  It still came out delicious.  Oh, I also didn't like how plain the rice tasted so I added in some sugar and rice wine vinegar cooked together like the sushi rice package says to do so.  We ended up eating the entire batch in one day!

Our homemade spam musubi

      Next on the list is Kalua pork (labeled Kalua pig on the website).  We first made this for my party (I didn't include the recipe as Scott made it, not me).  Then, when we were describing it for our friend Pete, he sounded enthused so we made it for him for his birthday/thank you for letting us stay at your house dinner.  It is pretty easy and comes out delicious!  Here is the original link:

http://www.paradisefoundonline.com/luau-recipes.html

Kalua Pig

4-5 lb pork butt
2 cups apple cider
1 tbsp liquid smoke
2-3 tablespoons hawaiian salt (regular sea salt will work)

The night before the feast, rub pork with salt and liquid smoke and place in crockpot. Add apple cider. Turn crockpot on low and leave it to cook for 10-12 hours, flipping pork over halfway through. Take meat out of the crockpot and shred. Makes 6-8 servings

     Ignore the part about flipping the pork over halfway through.  There is absolutely no need to do that and it sets your cooking time back any time you open up the lid of a slow cooker.  The recipe itself is delicious and just falls apart!  mmmm....  The challenge?  Finding liquid smoke at your local grocery store!

Kalua pork with a fresh salad, homemade french bread rolls
and macaroni salad

Pete's birthday cake.  Look familiar?  It's the Hawaiian wedding cake
I made for my own birthday.  Still amazingly delicious!