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In honor of the Summer Olympics in Japan, Chef Chris Oh has teamed up with Spam to make sushi rolls using a new twist on the Korean kimbap.
You may have heard of Chris Oh if you’ve seen the Food Network’s Great Food Truck Race Champions, Cutthroat Kitchen, or Kitchen Inferno. Chris is also the Asian Supreme Chef West Coast Winner. His restaurant awards include Thrillist’s Best Restaurant in the Country; Best New Restaurant 2019 by Eater SF; Top 25 Food Trucks from Forbes Magazine; Top Los Angeles Food Trucks by LAist; Top LA restaurant by Zaga; voted one of the 10 best fried chickens by LA; voted the best poutine by LA, voted one of the top 10 appetizers in 2013 LA Food & Wine; voted best Kalbi Food GPS; best sausages details magazine; voted best Nouveau Street Food 2012; voted one of the top 5 food trucks in LA; Voted one of LA’s 25 Hottest Restaurants by Eater SF.
I interviewed Chris and found he was energetic and enthusiastic about food.
I asked him how he is managing his business with the current situation with the pandemic and he was very optimistic and said that everyone is going through the same thing and it forces creativity and new ideas to stay alive. An example of his creativity is his Korean BBQ car, which went viral and offers a cooking experience from a Scion XB.
This love of cooking began when he and his younger brother came home from school and both parents were working in their real estate business. It was like “Iron Chef” in the Oh household when Chris used what he found to create interesting creations. When he told his parents that he wanted to go to cooking school, they both said no as they wanted him to get into the real estate business. So obediently, Chris went to college and opened a real estate company and car wash. He did that for 10 years. He then sold his shops and home, and worked in kitchens across Los Angeles, honing his creativity and developing his palette. With that knowledge, and his understanding of running a business, he built his ongoing restaurant and food business empire.
Chris currently owns Um.Ma in San Francisco, Kamu, Las Vegas, is the founder of the Seoul Sausage Company and Kpop (wholesale sauces), is a clothing designer and television personality. His Chingu Hawaii restaurant on Kapiolani Boulevard is currently closed and he is looking for a new location.
Chef Chris was excited when he talked about Spam since he thinks it’s home cooked and said you could substitute any other protein in a dish for Spam and you would have a great meal!
With his Korean roots and in Japan, Chris teamed up with Spam to create a sushi roll for the 2021 Olympics.
Here is his recipe that was served to the participants in the Tokyo Olympics.
Korean kimbap with Spam Classic
Ingredients:
1/4 cup sliced red pepper
1/4 cup sliced green bell peppers
1/4 cup sliced eggplant
1/4 cup red cabbage
1/4 cup sliced pickled yellow daikon
2 cups of cooked white rice
Cut 1/2 of 1 (12 ounce) Spam Classic, cubes into 1/2 inch long cubes
2 tablespoons of furikake
2 tablespoons of soy sauce
1 tablespoon of water
2 tablespoons of brown sugar
1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
5 sheets of nori sushi paper
5 tablespoons of sesame oil
salt and pepper
Fry all vegetables individually in a pan or over medium heat with a little sesame oil and salt and pepper. After cooking, set aside to cool.
After each vegetable is cooked, take and place on nori sheets and roll into 1/2-inch cylinders.
In a pan over medium heat, lightly brown spam cubes. Once browned, remove spam and pour soy sauce, water, rice wine vinegar, and sugar into the same pan and cook until the sauce is slightly thickened. When done, remove from heat and combine with cooked rice and furikake. Mix thoroughly.
After the rice mixture has cooled down, place the rice on the nori sheet and distribute it evenly over the whole sheet. Place cylinders of sauteed vegetables in the roll and top with rice.
After carefully placing it, roll the rice over the cylinders and completely wrap it until you have a large roll. After rolling, press down to secure all of the rolls.
Take a sharp knife and cut it into bite-sized pieces and enjoy!
Gourmet bites
Here are some spam facts:
• 12.8 cans of SPAM are eaten every second.
• Limited Edition Spam Pumpkin Spice sold out in 7 hours.
• Spam has only five ingredients: pork with ham, salt, water, potato starch and sodium nitrate.
• Over 500 restaurants in the US have spam on their menus.
• There is a SPAM museum in Austin, Minnesota.
Email Audrey Wilson at audreywilson808@gmail.com.
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