Get Your Grill On

A few weeks ago l cooked up what I’m now calling SPAM “Burnt Ends.” I had been looking for an interesting take on SPAM that I could serve at a luau my wife and I are planning for later in the summer (SPAM is huge in Hawaii, so it would make a novel appetizer). I had seen some recipes for barbecued bologna and could easily just adapt those to the SPAM, but I took things a few steps further.

The inspiration comes from the burnt ends of brisket at RUB (New York City): take an overly rich cut of meat, rub it, smoke it, sauce it, cube it, rub it again and smoke it again. On most days I’ll take RUB’s burnt ends over what you see here, but it would take about six times the investment in both meat and smoking time. With brisket burnt ends, the crispness is a byproduct of rendering out some of the fat. Here, it’s a way to make a cheap hunk of processed meat a little more palatable.

I took three cans of SPAM and started by scoring the outsides, partly for appearance and partly to help grip the flavor additions I’d apply later. I then lightly coated two of the three with sesame oil and the third with mustard—again, partly for flavor, partly to help the rub stick. I rubbed the first two with Willie B’s Bourbon rub (spiked with about 20% cayenne). The third was treated to a lethal dose of Doctor Gonzo’s new barbecue dry rub.

I smoked the SPAM over Hawaiian kiawe, a breed of wood similar to both guava and mesquite. After about an hour and a half, I glazed the first two with a homemade Huli Huli basting sauce. Huli Huli chicken is a popular item in Hawaii, named because the chicken is turned (”huli”) frequently, with the basting sauce applied at each turn. There are many Huli Huli sauce recipes available on the web, but mine uses pineapple juice, pineapple jelly, lime juice, ketchup, soy sauce, hot sauce, ginger and brown sugar.

After another twenty minutes, I cut the SPAM into slices and chunks, then added more mop and more rub, purposely varying the amounts among the various pieces. The final twenty minutes was enough to crisp up the surface and allow the second wave of rub to blend with the meat.

The smaller chunks were perfect for nibbling; the larger slices made their way into mini sandwiches made with a sliced baguette and Hawaiian style hot sauce.