A Facebook discussion about Spam got me thinking about how much I liked Spam Musubi (thanks Ted).  For those of you who don't know what that is, it's a snack that's big in Hawaii that's basically glazed Spam sandwiched between two layers of sushi rice and wrapped in nori.  It's so good and available for a dollar or so at convenience stores there.  So, it got my brain going about how good it would be grilled (because isn't everything better grilled) and served hot.  I'm a huge fan of grilled sushi rice (from Ming Tsai's book) so this would have to be good.  It was time to play, so I made it three different ways.

The first one was just doing grilled sushi rice the way I usually do, but incorporating some diced and glazed Spam.  The second was more of a traditional way, but my wife doesn't like nori and I didn't know how that would grill so I needed something else to hold it together.  Of course, that had to be bacon.  The third was to take a page out of one of Ted's book and cedar plank it.  You'll have to read all the way to the end to find out which one won.

I started by slicing and grilling the Spam.

No pictures of the sushi rice, but for those that don't know, sushi rice isn't just rice. 
It's a short grain sticky rice that's seasoned with rice wine vinegar, mirin, and sugar.

Next, it went into the musubi glaze (mirin, soy sauce, and sugar).
When the Spam was done with it's bath, I took the glaze off the heat and let it thicken.

Next, I rolled the traditional style musubi in a couple pieces of bacon.
I put the bacon on the grill for a couple of minutes first just to render off a little of the fat.

Here are the musubi balls and the bacon wrapped musubi ready for the grill.
I put toothpicks in the bacon through the sides to hold them together.
Worked like a charm and the toothpicks are the perfect size.

The planked musubi was the easiest.  Oh, by the way, you don't need
a musubi maker, just flatten out the rice and use the Spam can as a cookie cutter.
Dip it in a little cold water first and the rice will come right out.

Here's the grilled musubi all done.  The bacon is somewhat crispy and done just right.
I used the glaze on top of the grilled musubi balls for a little extra flavor.

Here's the planked musubi all done.  I put a little glaze on it too.

The results were unanimous.  Ok, it was just me and my wife, but they were still unanimous.

In third place, the musubi balls.  Don't get me wrong, just because they came in last, doesn't mean they weren't good - they were awesome.  The flavor was spot on and the grilled sushi rice got that nice crispy edge to it that I like.  But, they didn't hold together as well as regular sushi rice.  Next time, I would put the diced Spam inside and I think they'd hold together. 

Second place, well, if you know me you're not going to believe this, but second place was the bacon wrapped.  They were fantastic.  The bacon grilled up nicely, the sushi rice had a little bacon flavor to it, and topping it with a little extra glaze was good too.

But, holy crap, I never thought the cedar planked musubi would be so freakin' good.  The flavor of the cedar combined with the Spam and the glaze was whole different ball game.  The best part is, these were the easiest to make too. 

Spam.  It's not just for breakfast any more.