Tutorial: Frankenstein (or Hulk) Spam Musubis

It’s fall break for my three kids, so that’s why I’ve stopped making lunches this week. To try to keep Mr. D occupied, I came up with a “cooking activity” for him to help me with yesterday, and it was an idea I’d been toying around with since Sunday: Frankenstein spam musubis.

My longtime readers will probably remember that I am a huge fan of themed spam musubis, having done LOST ones, Fourth of July ones, and University of Hawaii ones. Clearly I’m not over that!

I started by cooking a batch of green rice, using cake gel instead of food coloring, since in the past I’ve found that mostly results in pretty light-colored rice.

Vital tools needed for this include sharp kitchen scissors, a spam musubi maker, and a good nori punch. This Chuboos one is the one I used, and I’m a huge fan of it because it’s sharp and has a really cute and useful assortment of facial features.

I started by cutting strips of nori. About two of the lined rows on the nori sheet were a good width. I then stacked it up and cut jagged edges on both sides for Frankie’s hair. Make sure the edges are flush when you cut either side, otherwise you’ll end up with flat hair spikes.

I used the double maker for this one so that it would go a bit faster, lining up two strips so they were evenly spaced, then I layered (see LOST musubi post linked above on how to layer) the musubi on top, covering the spiky hair parts. I then folded the strips over and sealed them with water.

After flipping it over, I had two full spam musubis stuck together. This will become four Frankie musubis. I cut it right down the middle and then wrapped it up to let it steam so the nori would soften.

I did them all before going back and decorating. This makes it easier to cut them down the middle into the nori.

Here’s a cut one, and you can see now how they’re two Frankies!

Prepping in advance is a good idea, so I punched out a bunch of eyes and mouths to play around with and applied them with a wet toothpick.

Of course, I didn’t account for Mr. Destruction, and after I gave him a ball of rice to “experiment” with, he ended up smashing it down right on top of my pile of eyes and mouths. His proud “Mommy, LOOK!” elicited a rather shocked face from me, and I had to punch a new batch. lol

After each was decorated, I wrapped them up in a bit of Saran wrap. I was able to make twenty Frankies from one can of Spam, though it’s worth noting that even little kids can eat a full rather than a half, so if you’re doing this for a potluck, plan accordingly.

Here’s one unwrapped. I so wanted to eat one, and maybe I still will today, even though I’m not supposed to eat rice. It’s just so tempting!

On his third taste test, Mr. D commented that they looked like Hulk musubis, and then later Mikia’s friend asked if they were Hulk musubis. I had cut nori for stitches to make it clearer that it was Frankenstein’s monster, but I ended up not having much space. Plus, this was already kind of labor-intensive, so I ended up skipping it.

They work as either Hulks or Frankensteins, so I guess if you’re having a Marvel-themed party, this would work well, and you’d just have to make them angrier than I did.

If you make these, let me know how it goes!