Spam Fried Rice
The first time I tried Spam was at our favorite restaurant in the East Village, Noreetuh. I could go on and on about this establishment, but for this post I’ll just keep it to when I bit the bullet and tried Spam in one of their fabulous Misubis. Musubis are a Hawaiian treat, that is kind of like sushi where there is rice and seaweed and structure involved. The classic variation of a musubi is the Spam version. So I tried it and paging Dr Suess, I do like Spam I am, I do!
One night when my daughter was a couple months old, my husband brought home a can of Spam and I was going to make tacos out of it, just like in that genius Spam commercial. I was a little apprehensive about handling the Spam that first go around and I admittedly had Darin take it out of the can for me while I drank a glass of wine for bravery before heading into the kitchen. I cut it up into long strips and sautéed it in a pan. Once those spam strips were browned, I was well out of the fear factor and I built our tacos and we enjoyed them. I think my feelings were, this won’t become a thing, but once in a blue moon, I would sign up for this.
When the pandemic began, Darin bought some cans as a staple when we didn’t know what was going on or what was going to happen with food shortages. I know we all started doing things at the beginning of the pandemic that we thought we would never do, and then those things kind of stuck around way longer than we thought at first. Spam became one of those things…We always have a can in our little pantry and we I probably make Spam Fried Rice two to three times a year.
My Spam Fried Rice is made up of some of my daughter’s favorite components: white rice, soy sauce, peas and carrots, pineapple and, well, Spam. She’s a spam musubi junkie. The other day we had a pineapple in the house and she demanded that I cut it open. While I was cutting it, I thought about how there was a can of spam in the pantry and I probably haven’t made Spam Fried Rice in about a year and I have this here pineapple and Liana never says no to rice and soy sauce. I made up my mind that we were eating it for dinner the following night.
I bought a bag of organic frozen peas and carrots and some fresh scallions, made some white rice in advance so it would cool and harden, and diced up a can of Spam. I’m a big girl, I can just do it myself now. The only thing you really have to worry about is if you have a cat. One word of advice, if you have a cat you may want to lock them in a room before you pull back the lid!
Spam Fried Rice Recipe
Ingredients:
1 Cup dry or about 3 cups cooked of Your Favorite White Rice (Leftover takeout 1 large container works best, or cook it at home at least a couple hours ahead and throw into the refrigerator)
Can of Spam, diced a little bigger than the peas
Bag of frozen veggies like peas and carrots
1 Cup diced Pineapple (I prefer fresh but canned totally works) Try to dice it to around the same size as the Spam
1.5 TB Soy Sauce
Sesame Oil for finishing
Curry Powder
Minced Fresh or ground Ginger
Two to Three Finely Chopped Scallions -white for cooking and green for Garnish
2 TB Vegetable Oil
1 Egg Per Person (plus more veg oil for frying)
First you want to heat your favorite heavy bottomed, high walled frying pan on medium to high heat. Add a little bit of vegetable oil and toss in the diced spam. Let this brown as much as possible, really coax it and be patient, get them nicely browned but not burnt. Add a teaspoon of curry powder and ginger (powder). Toss in your bag of veggies and sauté together for a couple minutes. Add the cold rice and a little more vegetable oil, once combined add the soy sauce, probably a tablespoon and a half, but this is up to your preference. Once that is all combined, throw in half of the scallions -the white part and then the pineapple. Saute this for a couple more minutes. Now if you want to top this with a fried egg, make the eggs when you’re making the fried rice so everything finishes at the same time. Let’s say the minute you start adding ingredients to the spam. Plate your rice, top with the egg and then give a little drizzle of sesame oil, garnish with scallion. Be light with the sesame oil, it goes a long way. If young children aren’t eating with you, use chili infused sesame oil if you like a kick. This is a really easy dish to make lots of substitutions and additions with. It’s a great midweek meal when you need something fast to make and fast to clean.
Wanna get crazy? Hollow out the pineapple that you use for a fun presentation your Spam eating guests would get a kick out of!
I hope you enjoyed my little Spam Fried Rice recipe. I know it’s not for everyone but you know what? It’s tasty, it’s easy, it’s cheap and if your kid likes rice, you should try it, it’s a good way to sneak in veggies!