Pokemon Onigiri (rice ball)

The kids love Spam Musubi, it’s nice and portable and great for a lunch or snack. The Baby doesn’t always love the (nori) seaweed though so I found the perfect solution:

Pokemon nori sheets! These are great because they add just a little bit of seaweed and the images come pre-cut so you just punch them out. Genius!

ingredients:
1 can Spam
soy sauce
sugar
3 cups cooked rice
Pokemon nori (seaweed)

Open a can of Spam. One can should be able to be cut into 9 slices, pretty evenly.

Place the cut slices in a pan – drizzle with soy sauce, and sprinkle liberally with sugar. Turn over and do the same to the other side. NOW turn the pan on to medium high heat. I like to cook it until the sugar gets good and caramelized and you get a nice sticky teriyaki color on the outside.

Turn them to make sure the other side cooks the same. Take them out of the pan to cool, then cut into small bite sized pieces.

I have an onigiri maker – IF you have one this is how you do it – place a small amount of rice in the bottom, a few cut pieces of spam in the middle, then top with more rice. Press down and the rice ball will pop right out!

If you DON’T have a maker, don’t worry! Here’s a quick and easy old skool way to do it: place a sheet of plastic wrap down. Pile a small amount of rice into the center, a little bit of cut spam into the center of the rice, then top with more rice.

Now – pull up the sides of the plastic wrap, twist and squeeze and form the ball with your hands and the plastic. Super simple!

Unmold the rice balls and place a punched out sheet of Pokemon nori in the middle for decoration. I re-wrap the rice balls with a new piece of plastic wrap just to keep them fresh and portable.

Who’s that Pokemon?!