SPAMabit more

I still had quite a bit of the tin of SPAM with Real Bacon left after the popcorn experiment, so was keen to try out some other recipes to use up the rest of it. I made a tea in my SPAM mug (which I bought a few years back from a car boot sale in Wimbledon for truly bargainous 20p), fired up the laptop and got Googling for ideas.

One of the places I frequently turn to first for inspiration is the fantastic blog Food Stories, whose author Helen Graves has a huge passion for cooking and experimenting with food, and an appetite that more than matches it in size. I love the jokey, irreverent style of her writing, and the fact that she tags quite a few of her recipes as 'guilty pleasures', yet you get the feeling she doesn't really feel that guilty about them at all, cooking, eating and writing about whatever she feels like.

I think I have yet to read one of her recipes that doesn't leave me wanting to try it myself, and I still have dreams about the epic Boston Baked Beans which I once made from her recipe. Equally, her photos and descriptions of the food she tries on her travels have added a quite a few previously unconsidered locations to my list of places I want to visit - Lebanon, Georgia and Ethiopia to name but three.

I was reminded of a post on the blog from some time ago, when Helen had been asked by Hormel, the makers of SPAM, to come up with a recipe using their prized pork product. She responded in typically innovative and witty fashion with the 'SPAM mi', her take on bánh mì, the classic Vietnamese baguette-style sandwich, replacing the usual minced or sliced pork, sausage or meat pate with SPAM. Genius.


Slices of SPAM are rubbed with a mixture of coarsely ground black pepper, garlic, fish sauce and sesame oil, and left to marinate for an hour. I think it was that instruction alone that made me want to try this recipe - few foodstuffs could conjure up such images of drab, wartime cookery than SPAM, so the idea of it languishing in the fridge in a marinade like a prime cut of meat appeals to me greatly.

The slices are then fried in a little oil, before being stuffed into a mayonnaise-slathered baguette with whatever selection of Asian-style accompaniments takes your fancy.

Chilli and lightly-pickled vegetables of some kind are pretty much mandatory I think (Helen gives a link to a recipe for a carrot and daikon radish pickle, which I more or less recreate with carrot, cabbage and celery), but cucumber, spring onion and coriander leaves are all good bets too. I don't have any of the latter to hand, so instead shove in a load of rocket, which is hardly very authentic, but then that's not really the point of this recipe, is it?


The beauty of the sandwich lies in its contrasts of tastes and textures - the salty slices of SPAM (made even saltier by the fish sauce, which also provides an umami kick) set against the sweet-sourness of the pickled vegetables; the heat of the chilli and peppery rocket tempered by the cooling cucumber. Likewise, sinking your teeth into the crusty baguette, you then tear through its soft insides before hitting the crunch of the veg and the crisp, fried surface of the SPAM - it really is quite delicious. Once again, hats off to Helen.

While searching for further recipe ideas, I discovered that SPAM enjoys a huge popularity in Hawaii of all places, having been introduced by troops stationed there during the Second World War. Served with rice and eggs, it has almost taken on the status of a national dish, and can even be found on the menu in branches of McDonalds. Equally popular is the SPAM musubi, a Japanese-inspired snack consisting of a slice of grilled SPAM atop a similarly-shaped stack of sushi rice flavoured with various sauces and seasonings, and wrapped in a piece of nori seaweed.

Tempted as I was to give it a try, by this stage I only had a small amount of SPAM left to use up, so I was a little reluctant to shell out for sushi rice, nori, furikake and so on just for that. Then I hit on the idea of trying the classic Hawaiian SPAM, rice and eggs instead, but serving it up sushi-style.

I put on a small quantity of rice on to cook, frying a slice of SPAM until browned and crisp on both sides. Meanwhile, I removed the bottom of the tin of SPAM to create a mould, and popped it onto a plate. When the rice was cooked, I spooned it in and used the base to compress the rice down into a firm block, before carefully removing the tin and placing the cooked slice of SPAM on top.

There was a fair bit of fat left from cooking the SPAM, so all that was needed for the egg was a little oil to grease the inside of the tin, which I then placed into the pan. I cracked an egg in and left it to fry for a couple of minutes until the white was firm but the yolk still fairly runny. I then removed the mould again, and used a fish slice to place the tin-shaped egg on top of the SPAM and rice stack.



A pile of slightly wilted rocket and a botched attempt at an artistic-looking smear of tomato ketchup finished things off nicely - certainly one of the more aesthetically pleasing dishes I have created for the blog so far. But certainly not too good to eat - I can confirm that SPAM, egg and rice are an excellent and very tasty combination.

In a final hoorah for the SPAM, I return to my idea from the popcorn experiment, cooking a diced slice until crisp, but this time grinding up the pieces to a powder.

 

It may look like little more than brick dust, but it packs a big flavour punch, livening up some simple scrambled eggs on toast no end. SPAM should definitely start producing and selling this - but what to call it? SPAM Dust? SPAM Seasoning? SPAM Sprinkle? Or simply "Pork Powder"? The last of these perhaps best encapsulates the "so wrong, but yet so good" feel of it - the sort of thing that could feature as a post on the Food Stories blog, perhaps.