Truffles with edible gold

Holiday gift idea

Relating to Spamarind Dinner

When it came to trying to think of a dessert that might use Spam, I thought of Garrett's bacon truffles over at Vanilla Garlic. Why not sub the Spam for the bacon?


So basically that's what I did. I took a slice Spam and cut it into very small cubes and then fried them up like bacon to get crispy. I then drained them on a paper towel and used them for the truffles. I took them to work and let people try them before I told them what it was. Only one person figured that it was some sort of meat. Everyone found them pleasantly acceptable and no one spit it out.

The saltiness of the Spam actually is a nice addition to the chocolate. Enjoy!



Spam Truffles - alteration of Garrett's recipe

1/2 cup + 3 tablespoons of heavy whipping cream
1/3 cup of fine chopped fried Spam
8 ounces of 60% or 70% chocolate (chips or well chopped)
cocoa powder for rolling

1. Finely dice some ham until you have 1/3 cup. Cook in a skillet until crispy, but not burnt. Place on some paper towels and press, being sure to soak out all extra grease.

2. Place heavy whipping cream in a small, heavy saucepan over medium heat and bring to just under a simmer. Take off heat.

3. Sprinkle in chocolate and cover for 5 minutes, allowing the chocolate to melt in the hot liquid. Stir gently until combined. (This is called a ganache.) Fold in the chopped spam.

4. Pour into a bowl and cover. Refrigerate for 4 hours.

5. Using your hands dusted in cocoa powder and a teaspoon roll out balls of chocolate about 1/2-1 inch in diameter. Roll in cocoa powder and place on a plate. Store in the fridge. Bring to room temperature before serving.

Tip: You can also spray your hands with Pam to help with the rolling and then roll them in the cocoa.



Spam

Osmosis Enzyme Bath

I inherited achy muscles from my mom. So it is no wonder that I love massages and can appreciate the therapeutic benefits of a hot tub. Saunas and steam rooms, though, are too claustrophobic for me. Recently I had the pleasure of the enzymatic bath. I am a convert! This will definitely be a yearly event at the minimum!

Osmosis Spa in Freestone (on the way to Bodega Bay) is the only place in the United States that offers enzymatic baths. The founder experienced his first bath in Japan and brought the concept here in 1985.

Osmosis is designed in a Japanese style. My boyfriend and I arrived and removed our shoes. After changing into robes, you sit in a tea room where an attendant comes to serve an enzymatic tea. It has 25 different enzymes that are absorbed into your system, help with digestion and interact with the external enzymatic bath.

How It Works (Osmosis.com)
When the body is immersed in the Cedar Enzyme Bath, circulation and metabolism are stimulated from outside, giving a boost to the internal organs which usually perform these functions on their own. This is part of the reason the bath is both relaxing and energizing at the same time!

After about ten minutes you are escorted to the bath rooms. The baths are big bins filled with a mixture of cedar shavings, rice bran, and plant enzymes. The attendant has scooped out “beds” for you. You step in and lie down and she quickly scoops the sawdust mixture on top of you. It is liked being buried at the beach, but this is sawdust and it is HOT!

A Biological Process (Osmosis.com)
The heat in the Cedar Enzyme Bath differs from other heat treatments in that it is produced biologically by a fermentation process. The largest organ of the body, the skin, comes in direct contact with intense enzyme activity in the Bath, which, in addition to heat, produces its own electro-chemical environment. This combination of heat and energy influences body chemistry and natural cleansing processes, and breaks down body wastes in the subcutaneous layer of the skin. The surface of your skin, your pores, and even the cells themselves are thoroughly cleansed.

The sawdust mixture is fermenting, which creates the heat. It is also very fragrant because of the cedar and the enzyme mixture. The attendant checks on you every five minutes and the longest you stay in is twenty minutes. You can shift or get out at any time. After ten minutes I could feel my heart beat and I was sweating profusely. I took my arms out so that I could regulate myself a bit. After fifteen minutes she sat us upright and scooped the sawdust behind our backs so that we could slowly cool down before stepping out. Finally we stepped out and we were covered with the sawdust. We looked like fuzzy cave people! We took brushes and brushed off as much as we could before stepping into the showers.

After the bath you can continue to a massage or facial. Because they were fully booked, we could only do the bath. Once we were in our robes they took us up to a private lounge and we laid down on futons. We put on headphones which played a special meta-music. This music was developed at some university that showed that through the use of stereo and different sounds coming from both sides, your brain waves react, synchronize, and can “encourage” you to different states. Our CD was meant to relax us. My boyfriend was snoring in no time.

Some of the benefits of the enzyme bath include:
Relief from joint and muscle aches and pains
Reduced tension and fatigue
Cleansing & beautification of the skin
Stress reduction & calming of the nerves
Improved digestion
Detoxification
Improved circulation & mobility


Click here for more stories like this: Fun Things to Do 

Spamarind = Spam & Tamarind

How did I end up cooking a Spamarind dinner? Think Iron Chef or similar challenges where you are challenged to cook with specific ingredients.

But let's start with the group first. You see, I belong to a gourmet dinner group that has been going for about three years. The group consists of some Sacramento foodies and the object is to have a rotation of six households that host a fine meal for the rest. Our members include a couple of other food bloggers, a couple of leaders of dining groups, and a whole bunch of food lovers.

The first two years we cooked whatever we wanted. This last year we started by pulling ingredients out of a hat, two per household. Most of the ingredients were common enough - tea, ginger, cherry. The most unusual ingredient was mesquite meal. I had the idea to throw in Spam because I had read an article about famous chefs adding dishes with Spam at some of their restaurants. In the end, my teammate, Chris, pulled the Spam and I pulled tamarind. And so our Spamarind dinner was formed.

The requirement was that one or both ingredients had to be in each of the four courses. Luckily our turn was late in the rotation, so I've had over six months of contemplation for this dinner and time to test some of the dishes. Chris was responsible for the entree and I pretty much figured out the rest.

Two diners did have food accomodations. One eats gluten-free and luckily almost everything was so. The other preferred to only eat chicken and so we got her a chicken breast instead of the pork loin. In the end she did try every Spam item and was pleasantly surprised.


Let's start with Spam. The word 'Spam' is supposedly derived from either 'pork shoulder and ham' or 'spiced ham'. Either way, it's a pork meat product that has been shoved into a can since 1937. It became an important staple during World War II because here you had a meat protein packaged in a can that therefore had a long shelf life and was easily transportable. Since then there have been many different Spam products as it has gone in and out of favor. Often there is an increase in popularity during bad economic times. Such is the case now. My coworker went back to his home state of Minnesota this fall and said that the local Spam factory was working 24/7 because of the increase of demand.


Tamarind, our other ingredient, is a tree and the fruit from it is what is used in many dishes throughout the world, most commonly in Asia. It is usually found in a paste form that is a purplish brown in color and the flavor is an acidic sweet/sour.

So the challenge was to see if I could get both ingredients into all four courses. In the end I only skipped tamarind in the soup course and was able to use Spam in all courses!

My thought process was that Spam was just pork. Any recipe that had pork or bacon could surely be substituted with Spam, right? And so my menu was born. (I've opted to link to the recipes as separate pages in order to concentrate on an overview of the dinner here.)

* Chickpea ceviche with tamarind
* Spam lumpia with spicy tamarind dipping sauce
* White bean soup shooters with crumbled Spam
* Pork loin with tamarind BBQ sauce and roasted vegetables with Spam
* Spam truffles and tamarind macarons

I knew this dinner would be a perfect candidate for Foodbuzz's 24-24-24. To make it more interesting for all, I decided to create a scorecard for each diner to record their rating and comments for each item. I asked them to give a 1-5 rating for three categories: taste, appearance, and creativity. Then there was a spot for thoughts/comments. There were ten raters and I did not rate. Also, the chickpea ceviche was a last minute addition and so it wasn't on the rating form.


Chickpea Ceviche with Tamarind

Chris added this contribution and had found the recipe on the internet. We set it out while we were busy getting everything else ready. You can definitely see and taste the Indian influence of this dish. Chris dislikes cilantro and wanted to put it on the side but was outvoted. In the end he admitted that it was much better with the cilantro (after he'd been eating it all week without). I'm not a fan of chickpeas but did enjoy the freshness of it. Not sure I would have called it a ceviche when it's more akin to a salsa. It was served with flatbread.



Spam Lumpia with Spicy Tamarind Dipping Sauce

Taste - 4.5 Appearance - 4.5 Creativity - 4.5

Lumpia is the Filipino version of an eggroll. The difference is that Filipinos put meat in theirs along with vegetables. Most commonly it is a mixture of beef, pork, and shrimp. Vegetables can be anything non-juicy like cabbage, potatoes, peas, etc. At work we had a lumpia fundraiser and I was surprised to find frozen vegetables (you know, the carrot, corn, pea, lima bean combo) in them. I used the Spam and shrimp and then cole slaw mix, water chestnuts, and onion. A couple of my diner comments said that my mixture of meat to vegetables was "well balanced".

I provided both the tamarind sauce and the more commonly known sweet chili sauce. In the end everyone agreed that the tamarind was the better one. I believe it works particularly well with the saltiness of the Spam in the lumpia, which was agreed on by this comment - "The tamarind sauce with lumpia was spicy and rich and added to the salty fried goodness."


White Bean Soup Shooters

Taste - 4 Appearance - 4 Creativity - 4

This recipe I found in Food Network Magazine - even the serving of it as shooters. Again, I substituted Spam for bacon - although I did put in a lot more Spam than would have equaled the called for half strip of bacon. This soup is very flavorful thanks to the saltiness of the Spam and the good amount of fresh sage. It is garnished with a bit of goat cheese. The comments reflected an enjoyment of creaminess and flavor, but said the color was "a little off-putting" and unappetizing.



Pork Loin with Tamarind BBQ Sauce and Roasted Vegetables with Spam

Taste - 4 Appearance - 3.5 Creativity - 4

For our entree Chris chose pork loin and used the tamarind barbecue sauce from Perfect Puree. I prepared the side of roasted vegetables with Spam chunks instead of bacon. All agreed that Chris prepared a beautifully cooked, moist loin, but it needed additional sauce to dress the plate. He had doubled the recipe, but still ended up using it all on the glazing and for the chicken for our one diner. I'm sure our entree score would have gone up if we had more sauce. The pork "looked naked" and we "could have used garnish" were some of the comments.

The roasted vegetables consisted of cubed parsnips, turnips, sweet potatoes, and regular potatoes that were tossed in oil. I cubed up the Spam and threw those in there, spread the veggies on a couple of baking sheets, and the roasted at 375 for an hour. I also parboiled a pound of Brussel sprouts, tossed them in oil, and then added them to the roasting pans at the half hour mark. What I heard most was that there needed to be more parsnips and Spam. "Negligible amount of Spam in veggies" and "would have loved more Spam in the vegetables" demonstrate this.


Spam Truffles

Taste - 4.5 Appearance - 5 Creativity - 5

The Spam truffles were the "winner" of the evening. I stole the idea from Garrett over at Vanilla Garlic. He had made bacon truffles and so I just switched the Spam for bacon again. I wanted to do something a little different than just rolling them in cocoa powder and so I used edible gold to decorate them.

There were the great comments like, "Loved em. Texture and gold took it over the top!" and "Wow!" The saltiness of the fried Spam was perfect with the dark chocolate, but it was the chewiness of tiny bits of Spam that threw off people a bit. This comment sums it up: "Taste fabulous. Texture a little weird. Chocolate melts away but the Spam is still in your mouth".



Tamarind Macarons

Taste - 4.5 Appearance - 4.5 Creativity - 4.5

I had made macarons back in December for the Daring Bakers' Challenge. I decided that these light, little cookies would go well beside the Spam truffles. I made a plain macaron cookie and then made a tamarind cream. I whipped up some whipped cream and added some tamarind paste to flavor it. Although I added a full tablespoon, I think it could have used even more. To stabilize the whipped cream I also mixed in some gelatin.

There were many "very good" comments. They weren't my best macarons though. I had made them almost a week in advance and stored them in the fridge. On Friday they were too crispy when I added the filling. I took them out to get a little moisture exposure and they went too far the other way. But the diners were mostly forgiving and enjoyed them as "light and delicate".

I'll sum up this whole Spamarind dinner experience with a quote I took from one of my diner's Facebook posts when she got home.

"Just home from the Spamarind dinner. I was a little scared but the results were fabulous! My favorite, Spam lumpias with a spicy Tamarind dipping sauce. Yummy!"

P.S. Foodbuzz 24-24-24 has the other 23 participants for January. Check out the other culinary adventures that took place the same time as my Spamarind dinner.

Related to Spamarind Dinner
(Tamarind sauce is the darker sauce. The orangier sauce is sweet chili sauce.)

For our appetizer I wanted to try to conquer both Spam and tamarind in one dish. I accomplished this with making lumpia. One of the ingredients in lumpia is ground pork. Again, a matter of substitution. I chopped up the Spam with my Food Chopper and added that in place of ground pork.


Also note that I shortcut by using cole slaw mix instead of chopping cabbage and carrot myself.

Spam Lumpia

4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 medium onion, chopped
1 bag of cole slaw mix
1 can of Spam
2/3 c cooked shrimp, chopped
1 can water chestnuts, chopped
1/4 c sesame oil
3 T soy sauce
fresh ground black pepper
1 pkg of lumpia wrappers
1 egg, beaten
vegetable oil

Add 2 tablespoons of sesame oil to a hot wok and add garlic. Cook under a minute and toss in onions. Cook until tender. Add in cole slaw mix and tossed vegetables together until well mixed. Cook for about ten minutes.

In a separate skillet, cook the chopped Spam until it is nicely browned. Add chopped shrimp and mix well.


Take meat mixture and add to veggie mixture. Add water chestnuts. Mix them until well incorporated. Turn off heat. Add soy sauce, rest of sesame oil, and black pepper to taste. Mix well.


Line a cookie sheet with paper towels to catch drippings. Set a colander on top and pour cooked mixture into colander. Let it cool and drain completely.

While mixture is cooling, open lumpia wrappers and separating each sheet. It is important that you separate the sheets in advance of wrapping because they stick together and you want to be able to wrap at a constant pace. Place the sheets on a plate and cover with a damp but well wrung out towel.



To wrap, place one wrapper on the table or counter in front of you, with one of the corners pointing at you. Place a tablespoonful of the filling about 2 inches above the corner closest to you, spreading it into a mini log. Fold the corner closest to you over the filling, tucking it snugly against the filling so the corner lays flat. Roll the wrapper once and fold in the left and right corners. Dampen your fingers with some beaten egg and wet the top corner. Continue rolling so that the top corner seals the roll shut.

Pour oil into a fry pan so that you have a 1/2 inch of oil. Heat the oil in a medium saucepan over high heat. When it is hot enough to make a piece of the wrapper crisp and brown within seconds, it is ready to use.

Fry a few lumpia (do not crowd them) at a time until crisped and browned, turning them with tongs as they cook. Each batch should take about 2 1/2 minutes. Use tongs to transfer the lumpia to paper towels to drain. Repeat to cook all of the lumpia.

Spicy Tamarind Dipping Sauce

# 4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
# 1/4 cup tamarind paste (found in Asian markets)
# 1 tablespoon canola oil
# 1 tablespoon fish sauce
# 1-2 tablespoons red pepper flakes
# 1 tablespoon sugar

Mix ingredients together.



Spam