It's the third week of "shelter in place" where I live. And like most of you, I've been rummaging through the pantry, foraging for ingredients for my next meal.
Today's find: a half package of kirimochi that was leftover from making New Year's ozoni soup.
Kirimochi is a hard, dried, shelf stable, square-shaped savory mochi that is found in Japanese grocery stores. Unlike the dessert mochi here that most people are familiar with, kirimochi is savory. But other than using it for ozoni soup, or toasting it and dipping it in a soy sauce sugar mix, I wasn't sure what else to make with this leftover package.
So I did a bit of googling, and found that Norio makes a grilled cheese mochi rice cake with it, Miss Mochi wraps the kirimochi with bacon, and Allison wraps hers in toasted seaweed. The bacon one appealed the most to me, but I didn't have any bacon. But I have cans of SPAM in the pantry...
And so, this concoction was born.
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| Kirimochi |
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| Pan fry til soft |
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| Aonori (seaweed powder) |
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| Make sauce and drizzle over skewers and dust with Aonori |
It's GOOD!
So I wanted to document it so that I remember to make this next year with leftover kirimochi after New Year's. I might buy extra kirimochi next year to ensure leftovers!
Stay safe everyone! And happy creative cooking!
Yields 2 servings
Ingredients:
- 4 pieces kirimochi
- half a can of Spam cut into 1 inch cubes
- 1 T soy sauce
- 1 t sugar
- 1 t mirin
- 1 t aonori (powdered seaweed)
- 1 t neutral oil
- 4 bamboo skewers (8 inches)
Procedures:
1. Unwrap kirimochi. Cut each one in half.
2. Cut two thick slices of Spam. Then cut each of the thick slice into 8 pieces (total of 16 cubes).
3. Add oil to a nonstick pan. Pan fry the kirimochi and Spam until the kirimochi is soft and the Spam is slightly browned on each side.
4. When the Spam and kirimochi is cool enough to handle, but still hot, thread the Spam and kirimochi through the skewers, alternating Spam and mochi. Set aside.
5. Wipe the oil off the pan with a paper towel. Then add the soy sauce, sugar and mirin to the pan. Heat until the mixture thickens a bit and turns into a glaze. Drizzle soy sauce glaze over the skewers. Sprinkle some aonori over the skewers and enjoy warm.