(spam squishing) (metal clanks) (upbeat music) – Welcome to Mythical Kitchen where dreams are what food becomes. Today we’re making spam jalapeno poppers. And we’re gonna break that recipe down into three easy steps. If you wanna find the time codes for each step, you can check them out, I actually I forgot which shoulder left. Check ’em out right there. Also, you can find the recipe in the description. So a lot of you don’t know this, I was actually born in the Midwest in Kansas City, Missouri. I spent the first four years of my life there. Don’t remember it. But, I like to channel my birthright Midwest food into things stuffed with cream cheese and jalapenos and spam, and deep fried. That’s why we’re making spam jalapeno poppers. Perfect for your Aunt Janet’s bridge party. This isn’t your fancy hand-passed Hors d’oeuvres at a black tie event. No, no, no. This is just carbs and processed meat fried into itself. We’re gonna get a little funky with it though. Let’s get cookin’! We gotta start out by making our sushi rice. Didn’t I just say that we’re not making anything fancy? Yes. Am I now making sushi rice? Yes. I am an absolute hypocrite. We gotta go ahead and take our rice and we have to wash it first. This is a really important technique. Anytime you work with wice. Anytime you work with wice, you always wanna wash it you silly wabbit. You gotta take the rice, this is gonna get the excess starch off of it and also if you’ve ever seen one of those videos where someone reaches into a bag of rice an a giant spider crawls out, this’ll prevent that. What you’re gonna do now is strain this into the bowl that is definitely big enough for all of the water. That’s the key. You want the vessel to be just big enough. Give me a sec, give me a sec. Give me one sec. (bowl crashes) And then you’re gonna drain the rice and then all of that excess starch should be washed off of it. This is already going perfectly. And then you’re gonna pop it into your pot, and then we just add plain water right here. Gonna put that in and then turn this to medium. And then when that comes to a boil, you’re gonna put the lid on and then you’re gonna drop it all the way to low and then you’re just gonna let that chill for about 15 minutes, take it off, let it rest for 10 minutes. (claps) This is already complicated. Just get some rice from a Chinese restaurant and then just leave it in your fridge and then add some more water to it and microwave it and then use that. All right, so the rice has been resting. And you can see it’s got nice kinda sticky texture to it. You want the grains to stick together because you’re gonna be wrapping that around a ball of cream cheese and jalapenos and spam, but there’s one more step. You gotta season your sushi rice. Sushi rice has a little bit of vinegar to it, a little bit of sugar to it. And that’s actually gonna help the texture as well so we’re gonna put our sugar in there, we’re gonna some salt in there. Some would say to dissolve the salt and sugar with the vinegar beforehand, I don’t think you really need to do that. You’re not trying to open up a Omakase restaurant, and if you are, I highly applaud you. Do it in Kansas City, I think they’re sorely hurting for one right now. But no, you’re gonna make sticky rice to wrap around a thing and then deep fry it. So you’re just gonna mix that in there, and then you’re gonna let this off the heat and it’s just gonna absorb all that delicious vinegariness and then you’re gonna save that for later and then you’re gonna mash it into a ball and then you’re gonna wrap stuff in it and then you’re gonna deep fry it and you’re gonna eat it. So first thing we’re gonna do, we’re gonna take the jalapenos and we’re gonna pickle them. That way, your teeth don’t have to do extra crunching to get through the pepper skin. I have soft teeth, I assume everybody else does. That’s a big factor for me. So what we have here, we have a pot heating up, we got water and vinegar. I don’t know which is which. Ooh, vinegar! Ooh, that wakes you up. Uh-oh, this is gonna affect me. The easiest and quickest way to make a pickle is you do equal parts water and vinegar. We got one cup, one cup and then a teaspoon of salt. Salt’s gonna dissolve and then we’re gonna pour the hot liquid onto the jalapenos and that’s almost gonna cook the jalapenos a little bit, just to get them nice and kind of soft and palatable that is gonna infuse all that delicious sourness in there. So we gotta chop up the jalapenos. (knife thudding) Great, so we got just a giant mess on the cutting board and now we’re gonna take that giant mess and we’re gonna shove it into this mason jar, wait for that to come to a boil and then we’re simply gonna pour it over and let that hang out. This is a great quick pickle recipe, or as we call them in the culinary world, a quickle. And now we’re gonna take our spam. This is the single most satisfying product to use in the food world. It’s like the Playdoh of meats. It’s just so very tactile and it makes the most satisfying sound when you dump it out of the can. Everyone, shh, shh shh shh. (spam squishing) (metal clanks) So this whole recipe was inspired by the fact that we did not know jalapeno spam existed. I used to grow up eating spam sandwiches as a kid, and I wish I had that little jalapeno flavor punch. And now I do. This is me just recreating things from my childhood. See food is love. Food is love. And food are memories. It’s community. In Mythical Kitchen dreams become, (blows raspberry). So we’re gonna go ahead and we’re gonna cube this spam up and then we’re gonna fry it up so it’s nice and crispy. All right, so we have our water and vinegar. This has come to a boil. Everything is nice and dissolved and we’re just gonna pour that over our jalapenos. This honestly only needs to sit for like five or six minutes, until you’re gonna get all that good pickle flavor absorbed. And now we’re heating up our oil in this pan and we’re just gonna fry up our spam. So what I like to do, is I like to cut the spam into very thin slices and then you’re gonna put those right down onto your spam bread slices. This is a great low carb snack and then what you’re gonna do is you’re gonna take a little bit of cream cheese and then you’re gonna spread that right on your spam. Honestly this is like half of our diet in the kitchen. It’s just like eating gross recipe scraps. – [Trevor] Our diet? – Half of my diet. I don’t wanna speak for anybody else. And then you’re gonna take the cream cheese and jalapenos, and then this cuts out all the carbs. Okay, I think the oil should be hot right now and we’re gonna take our spam cubes and put that in the hot oil. When the spam starts to scream in the pan, that’s how you know the soul has officially left the meat, and then you’re able to mix it into your other ingredients. – [Ben] Don’t get sick. – I’m not gonna get sick. I ate a bunch of Oreos before this. Gettin’ some nice crispy edges, and my pan is all the way up and it’s not hot! Food’s gonna fall out of your mouth into the pan and don’t tell anyone if that happens. Don’t use your hands. I gotta stop. I gotta stop doin’ that, but I got cream cheese on my stirrin’ spoon. What am I doing? Can we just start this thing over? (upbeat music) Welcome to Mythical Kitchen where dreams become food. Today we’re making spam jalapeno poppers. Got the slotted spoon, uh-oh. Wait wait wait, can you hear the spam screaming? Kill me, let me out of my eternal torture! We have a large mixing bowl and then in that mixing bowl, we’re gonna put our one cup of shredded cheddar cheese, and then we’re gonna put our cream cheese that has been left out to get to room temperature to be nice and softened and malleable. Uh-oh, uh-oh. Oh no I got spam on the burner. Hot! I take the spam and the heat from the spam is actually gonna help kind of melt the cream cheese and the cheddar to get it all nice and incorporated. All right, take some jalapenos and chop these up and then mix those right in the mixture. All right, so you’re gonna leave a little bit of texture on the jalapenos. You wanna have some nice actual crunch. And put that in there. You wanna let this get a little bit colder so you can form it into your hands, how did that even get there on my thumb? You’re gonna let this solidify in the fridge for about half an hour and then you’re gonna wrap your sushi rice around that. And you’re gonna fry it and you’re gonna dip it in what? Nicole! – [Nicole] Ranch! – Ranch, baby! It’s the best, best condiment in the game. Gah, we run through so much ranch in this kitchen, it’s disgusting. We have a problem, we need help. (upbeat music) So we have our oil, and we’re not gonna be deep frying these. We’re actually gonna be shallow frying these. I get it, deep frying in a home kitchen, it’s scary. You could blow your entire house up. So what we’re gonna do is just shallow fry it. All you gotta do is fill a pan with like a half inch of oil and then you’re not submerging stuff. Nothing’s gonna blow up in your face. Nice and simple. So, first step, you gotta wet your hands. And then you’re gonna take some rice. The water’s just so the rice does not stick to your hands. It’s something I saw a sushi chef do once and I was like, that’s really cool, I’d like to do that as well, but do it with spam. All right, so you got a nice little mat of rice and then you’re gonna take a little spoon and get a nice little nugget of that cream cheese spam jalapeno mixture and then you’re simply gonna fold the rice around it and then you’re gonna form that into a nice little rice bowl. And you want uniformity unless I don’t make them uniform and then you don’t want that. Yeah, they’re always a little uneven. And one always sits higher than the other, so it’s fine. That’s true, do you know the reason? So when your legs close, they don’t crush your testicles, so one can actually kind of shift up above the other. You didn’t expect to get that here, did you? Oh, the balls are getting bigger and bigger as time goes on, which again is another thing that happens in life. People don’t realize that. So now we’re gonna take the balls and we’re gonna just gently place them in the oil. Rice, since it’s wet, it’s actually gonna take some time for that moisture to evaporate, which is great, because then you’re gonna ensure that the insides are fully melted and oozy with a crispy exterior. (oil sizzling) Yeah, that’s nice and golden on that side. This is about the color you want. Somewhere within that golden brown range. So since our oil temperature dropped so much since we’re frying in such a shallow pan, this actually cooked for about 10 minutes, so again, use your best judgment on how long to cook it for. All we can do is provide you the tools to succeed in life, which we’ve done poorly. All right, so these are about ready to pull, so we’re just gonna slide over our paper towels just to drain some of that grease off, and then we’re just gonna gently take this out with a spoon. And that is looking super, super crispy. Nice and golden brown on the rice. You can just hear them sizzling, or maybe that’s just spam screaming from the inside trying to escape, who knows. But you’re gonna let these sit, chill. And then you’re gonna cut ’em open and dip them in some ranch and eat them and share them with your friends or your Aunt Janet’s bridge party, ’cause I think that was a thing that I said earlier. I don’t know how to play bridge. I don’t know what bridge is. All right and then the last step, very important. While the balls are still warm, you’re gonna go ahead and grate a little bit of Parmesan cheese on top. The Parmesan is just gonna gently melt into it and then, those are your spam jalapeno poppers. All right, now all we gotta do is eat these balls. It’s gonna break, oh you can hear, oh you can hear that shattering crunch. Then when you open up, there’s just nice big nuggets of spam and then very important, this is the most important step. You gotta dip it in ice cold ranch. This is Hidden Valley coming straight out the fridge. And now. (popper crunches) Oh my God. You get that shattering crunch on the outside, then there’s like just a little bit of supple rice-iness and it’s all seasoned throughout and that just gives way to a rush of spam fat that has melted into the cream cheese. It’s absolutely incredible, there’s just enough rice in there, some jalapenos, mm! Mm. I need a moment guys, I’m sorry. This is so stupid good. I need someone to share this experience with me though. We gotta go and we gotta spork someone’s day up. (upbeat music) – [Layne] Hi. – Hi Layne. – Hey. – Good morning. – Good morning. – [Josh] Do you wanna eat my spam jalapeno poppers? – Yes! I’ve never tried spam before. – [Josh] Really? I’m so excited for you. Then I’m just gonna submerge this spork in the ranch. Shake some of it off. This is how the chef intends it to be eaten. And, in we go. Oh, it’s real crunchy! – Whoa! – Right? – Mhmm. – It’s good, I wanna ask your questions while your mouth is still full. – Crunch! – Crunch! Cream, spam! – Mhmm. – What do you think of spam? – It’s great! Salty. – Umami. – It’s not umami. – (laughs) It’s not umami. – Spam is good. – You’re a spam convert. – I think I’m a spam fan. – You’re gonna go to underground spam raids with me now. There’s one tomorrow. Okay, let’s go. – It’s in a warehouse downtown. – Okay, what do I wear? – I’ve made a full suit of armor out of spam cans. It’s good though, right? – Mhmm. – You’d serve these at your bridge parties? – Yeah, I love playing bridge. How many balls jokes did you make. – I made a lot, too many balls jokes. I think we’re gonna hear about that one. I will see you guys back at the Mythical Kitchen. Next week we got more recipes comin’ at ya, and then we got another episode of snack smash comin’ out. Hit me up at Instagram if you make this dish at Mythical Kitchen, using #dreamsbecomefood. I’ll see you next time, I need to eat more of these. 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