Foodie Friday: Good Enough SPAM SUSHI Recipe!

Welcome to FOODIE FRIDAY! This week, we are celebrating the paperback release of my YA novel GOOD ENOUGH (HarperCollins ’08). The paperback version was released on June 7, 2011. So all my blogs this week have been GOOD ENOUGH-oriented.

How does food relate to GOOD ENOUGH? In a word… SPAM. Yes, SPAM is featured quite a bit in my novel. Why? Koreans. Love. SPAM. Just check out this article for more info:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002565698_spam17.html

In my novel, the main character, Patti Yoon, is always eating SPAM-dishes created by her mom. This was based on growing up myself and eating lots of SPAM at home. To this day, I still love SPAM and will eat it with kimchee fried rice and a fried egg. Yum! 🙂

There are three SPAM recipes included in my novel. I’m featuring one of them today – “SPAM Kimbap (AKA Spam Sushi Rolls)”!

(Keep reading after the jump for the recipe and pictures of the SPAM sushi rolls!)

SPAM KIMBAP (AKA SPAM SUSHI ROLLS) RECIPE

Below is a kitchen test that I did of my SPAM kimbap recipe for GOOD ENOUGH. I wanted to make sure my recipes actually worked! 🙂

1. Cook some rice. (I recommend getting a bag at your local Asian store or the Asian section of your local supermarket. Get the sticky white rice bag.) I actually have no idea how to cook rice other than  using our rice cooker. I just put in a cup of rice and 1.5 cups of water and press the ON button and 40 minutes later, I have rice! 🙂

2. Buy some SPAM. 🙂

3. Buy some roasted seaweed. This is known as “kim” in Korean or “nori” in Japanese. Again, you need to get these at your local Asian store. If you don’t have one, your supermarket’s Asian aisle might have them. And if your Asian aisle in your supermarket only has La Choy fast food, well, you can order it online. And they sell nori snacks at Trader Joes that you can use, too.

4. Cut the SPAM into slices and fry ’em up in a pan!

5. Cut up some vegetables, like cucumbers and carrots!

6. Spread a layer of rice across your “kim”/”nori”/dried seaweed. Then cut up the fried SPAM into long strips. Put some in the middle. Sprinkle roasted sesame seeds too if you have them!

7. Add your veggies. I used spinach, cucumbers, and carrots.

8. If you have a sushi roll mat, use it to help roll up the kimbap! Kimbap is the Korean version of sushi. Or should I say, sushi is the Japanese version of kimbap? 🙂

9. Warning: Don’t overstuff your SPAM sushi! I put way too much rice in, so the first test batch totally burst! LOL!

10. So I totally ruined my first test batch of SPAM sushi. Yikes! What’s a girl to do?

11. Well, even though the first batch “broke,” I decided, why waste such yummy food? So I threw it all in a bowl and ate it. Yum.

12. But I had to make sure my recipe worked. So I did all the recipe steps over, being careful this time not to overstuff the seaweed wrapper. And voila! Perfect sushi rolls! You just cut them in up into inch-thick pieces.

13. Voila! The final product! Do you like my plating? Do you think this could win Top Chef? 🙂

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So that’s my Foodie Friday column on SPAM “Kimbap” from a recipe featured in my YA novel GOOD ENOUGH. It’s out in paperback now. Go here for more info on my book: https://paulayoo.com/books-good.html

Stay tuned for more blogs next week as we return to the regular schedule of Music Monday, TV Tuesday, Writer Wednesday, Tuna Thursday, and Foodie Friday! Until then, Happy Writing! WRITE LKE YOU MEAN IT! 🙂