WOK UNDERDOG RECIPES INSPIRED BY OKINAWAN RESEARCH…

The Okinawans ate SPAM with RICE AND NORI…This dish below is inspired by those simple ingredients.

SPAM & Bacon Choi Sum Rice Bowl

Simple ingredients. Big flavour.

Sometimes a recipe doesn’t begin with a recipe.

It begins by looking at what you’ve got in the kitchen and thinking:

What can I make out of this?

That’s exactly how this one came about.

SPAM. Bacon. Choi sum. Rice.

Nothing particularly glamorous on their own. But put them together in the right way, add a couple of finishing touches, and suddenly you’ve got a seriously tasty bowl of food.

And that’s what WOK UNDERDOG cooking is all about.

The Ingredients

For one generous serving:

• ½ tin SPAM, sliced or cubed
• 2–3 rashers bacon, chopped
• A good handful of choi sum
• 1 serving cooked rice
• Chilli oil
• Sesame oil
• Black pepper, optional
• Spring onions or fresh chilli, optional

The Method

1. Get the rice going.
Cook your rice according to the packet instructions. Once ready, keep it warm while you prepare everything else. Or you can use the packet rice.

2. Crisp up the SPAM.
Cut the SPAM into cubes or strips and fry it in a hot wok or frying pan. You don’t need much additional oil. Give it enough time to develop those lovely browned, slightly crispy edges.

3. Add the bacon.
Throw in the chopped bacon and continue frying until cooked and nicely coloured.

4. Cook the choi sum.
You can use the same wok once you’ve removed the meat, or cook it alongside if you’ve got enough room. Give the choi sum just enough heat to soften the stems while keeping some bite in the leaves.

5. Build your bowl.
Start with a bed of hot rice. Spoon the crispy SPAM and bacon over one side and arrange the choi sum alongside it.

6. The finishing touches.
Drizzle a little chilli oil across the bowl for heat.

Then give the choi sum its own light drizzle of sesame oil.

That’s it.

Don’t drown it in sauce. Let the ingredients do the work.

⭐ THE WOK UNDERDOG VERDICT

This is exactly the sort of meal that demonstrates what I’ve been trying to achieve with WOK UNDERDOG.

You could look at a tin of SPAM and think:

“It’s just SPAM.”

You could look at some bacon and greens and think there’s nothing particularly exciting there.

Or you can start experimenting.

The SPAM becomes crispy and savoury. The bacon adds smokiness. The choi sum brings freshness and texture. The rice absorbs all those flavours, while chilli oil brings some heat and sesame oil adds that wonderful toasted aroma at the end.

Suddenly, you’ve created something worth sitting down for.

And importantly, you don’t need 20 ingredients to do it.

A Little Okinawan Inspiration…

There’s also a nice connection to the Japanese food I’ve been researching recently.

SPAM and other luncheon meats have an established place in Okinawan food culture, where American influences became intertwined with local ingredients and cooking traditions after the Second World War.

This isn’t an attempt at an authentic Okinawan recipe.

It’s something I think is much more fun:

Take the inspiration. Use ingredients readily available in Britain. Then create your own dish.

That’s WOK UNDERDOG.

🎱 The SnookerZone Summer Warmer

And for the snooker players among us, this is another addition to my Summer Warmers collection.

It’s quick enough to knock together before an evening’s practice, substantial enough to fill you up, but without needing to spend half the evening standing over the cooker.

Because whether it’s cooking or snooker, I’m increasingly coming back to the same principle:

Learn the fundamentals first. Then don’t be afraid to experiment.