Author Notes
My first iteration of this dish was for a Super Bowl potluck in 2012. You bring tacos and people gobble them up. I didn’t say what was in them other than “uhm, pork”. Nonetheless SPAM ™ is such an integral part of the Hawaiian diet that I can’t believe the state flag doesn’t include a picture of a can waving in that tropical breeze. This concoction originated as military food and the connection goes back to our naval bases back before Hawaii attained statehood, as well as to container ship deliveries to other Pacific islands.
Of course the hard thing is to make it taste like food. It’s cheap and nutritious in a way but still…SPAM™
can be nasty stuff. Nonetheless no bar is too low for Pierino to limbo when it comes to nickel and diming. Still, we do want to deliver something that tastes good and might be edible to the hungry and poor. To even my own surprise this turned out to be a success. The first time I prepared this I used soft tortillas but when you are making a mess of these for a crowd the hard shells work best.
And for the record, I hate the Super Bowl and can’t actually stand to watch it. Five seconds of violence followed by twenty five seconds of chat, and it lasts for half a day.
—pierino
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Ingredients
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1
1 12 ounce can “Hot and Spicy” SPAM™, plus one7 ounce can original SPAM™
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1
Corn tortilla shells (12 to 16 count package)
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Peanut oil
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Sesame chili oil
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1/2 cup
sweet onions chopped
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1 tablespoon
soy sauce
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2 cups
crushed pineapple
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Mexican style crema or sour cream (optional)
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For table condiments: vinegar based hot sauce such as Tabasco or piri piri (Portuguese hot sauce)
Directions
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Chop the onion and cut the SPAM™ into very small dice
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Heat up a skillet and add a very thin film of peanut oil. Add a few drops of chili oil to the pan.
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Add the onions and SPAM and stir until the onion is translucent and the SPAM ™
is lightly colored.
Stir in the soy sauce.
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Warm taco shells by your own preferred method---e.g. warm oven.
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Fill shells with SPAM™ mixture , top with pineapple and crema (if using). Alternatively you have my permission to put the crema in the bottom of the shell before filling it up.
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Season to taste with hot sauce. Ring-a-ding-ding.
Standup commis flâneur, and food historian. Pierino's background is in Italian and Spanish cooking but of late he's focused on frozen desserts. He is now finishing his cookbook, MALAVIDA! Can it get worse? Yes, it can. Visit the Malavida Brass Knuckle cooking page at Facebook and your posts are welcome there.
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