Crispy Panko Crusted Spam
By: thyvegas
Published: Thursday, February 17, 2011 - 3:13pm

Ingredients




1 can Spam
1 large egg
1/4 cup all purpose flour
3 cups panko (Japanese style breadcrumbs)
Canola oil for shallow pan frying

Preparation

1 Slice a can of Spam into 8 slices (the slices can be thicker, but thinner slices fry up extra crisp).  Beat the egg together with the flour to make a thick batter. Place the panko crumbs into a flat pie plate. 2 Slide the Spam slices into the batter to coat well. Lift the Spam out of the batter leaving as much batter on the meat as possible and gently place in the plate of crumbs. Press the crumbs into the batter on the meat to get a heavy coating on both sides. 3 Heat about an inch of oil in a sauté pan with deep sides over medium high heat. Place the breaded Spam into the oil and fry on both sides until deep golden brown and crisp. Remove from the oil, drain on paper towels and serve.

About


I truly believe just about anything can be breaded with panko, those crispy Japanese style breadcrumbs, and transformed into something pretty darned good.
In Japan, pork, chicken and seafood are breaded in panko and fried until golden brown and crisp. In my kitchen, anything is a target. The most unconventional food I’ve breaded and fried so far has been poached eggs. That turned out better than I expected. 
When it comes to Spam, I can take it or leave it. I’m not a food snob, I can just think of dozens of other nitrite laced, processed foods I like a great deal more than Spam, but a recent request from a family member for it forced me to think of a way to prepare it that I might actually like. Panko…Spam…bingo!
After I figured out how to get the fluffy breadcrumbs to stick to the slices of Spam, the rest of the process was a snap. Trust me on this; if you’ve always been frightened of Spam but have wanted to give it a try, this is the way to go. And if you are already a Spam fan, you’ll want to panko-bread and fry up two cans of the pink stuff people love to hate.