Recipe is 'Hawaiian classic' using teriyaki short ribs instead of canned meat

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High-quality beef, teriyaki sauce favored by chef for musubi recipe

Adam Witt, a former private chef living in Chicago, tells Fox News Digital how he came up with the idea for his teriyaki short rib musubi recipe.

Chef and content creator Adam Witt has been making food videos since 2018, but in 2021 the habit turned into a full-time job for him.

A former private chef for a family in Chicago, Witt considers himself "very lucky" to live the life he does, even if it means taking cellphone video of food when he's on vacation.

"It's life. It's work. It's kind of all the above," Witt told Fox News Digital in a Zoom interview. (See the video at the top of this article.)

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One of his more recent videos shows him making a variation of a food he grew up eating because of his Hawaiian-raised stepmother. 

Musubi is canned lunch meat and rice wrapped in seaweed — but Witt's version substitutes teriyaki-flavored beef short ribs for Spam.

Chef and content creator Adam Witt at home in Chicago. He told Fox News Digital, "[Why not] make a really nice teriyaki sauce, use very high-quality short rib and make sort of a different version of a Hawaiian classic?" (Fox News Digital)

"I figured we have some of the best beef here in the United States, [so why not] make a really nice teriyaki sauce, use very high-quality short rib and make sort of a different version of a Hawaiian classic?" Witt said.

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Although the recipe calls for beef short rib, any tender cut will do, such as a New York strip or a ribeye — "something that you can grill over high heat fast and it's already tender," Witt told Fox News Digital.

"Or, if you did want to use something that's more similar to a short rib, you would just need to make sure to cook it low and slow, as we say, until it softens up," he said. "And then from there you can glaze it with your sauce and put it on top of your musubi."

Chef Witt uses beef short rib with a teriyaki sauce as a substitute for canned lunch meat in his musubi recipe, but he says any tender cut will work as well. (Adam Witt)

Witt's always glad when someone takes a liking to one of his creations, but he admitted his greatest joy comes from "making cool videos."

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"Whether you cook the food or not, it's up to you," he said. 

"It's awesome when I see it, though."

Here's his recipe.

Teriyaki Short Rib Musubi by Adam Witt

Ingredients

4 pounds American beef short ribs, deboned and trimmed

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 tablespoon mirin

¼ onion

2 garlic cloves, smashed

½-inch knob of ginger, peeled

1 12-ounce can luncheon meat

½ cup teriyaki sauce

8 cups cooked and cooled white rice

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Furikake, as needed

Toasted sesame oil, to taste

5-6 nori sheets

Kosher salt

black pepper

Directions

1. Season the short ribs with salt and pepper, then add them to a sous vide bag along with the soy sauce and mirin. Sous vide the short ribs at 167 degrees Fahrenheit for 24 hours.

2. Carefully remove the short ribs from the hot water and remove them from the bag, separating any leftover aromatics, which can be discarded. Allow the meat to cool down in the fridge for 1 hour.

Adam Witt, right, is seen enjoying his teriyaki short rib musubi. (Adam Witt)

3. Remove the luncheon meat from the can. Set it aside for something else. Rinse out the can. This will be our "molding can."

4. Remove the cooled short ribs, then trim them to fit the molding can. Brush on some teriyaki sauce, then use either the oven broiler or a handheld torch to caramelize the sauce onto the meat. Set aside.

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5. Line the inside of the molding can with a piece of plastic wrap. Add in the rice, followed by a dusting of furikake and drizzle of toasted sesame oil. Add a piece of the trimmed short rib on top. Add the same amount of furikake and sesame oil to the top of the short rib piece, then cover with more rice. Lightly press the plastic wrap down to shape the mixture into a rectangular brick shape. Pull the plastic wrap to remove the rice brick and set it aside. Repeat with the remaining pieces of short rib and rice.

6. Lay down a piece of nori and place the rice brick in the center. Roll the whole thing to form a musubi and seal it with a touch of water.

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7. Enjoy immediately — or wrap in plastic and save it for later!

This recipe is owned by Adam Witt, courtesy of Beef. It's What's for Dinner. It was shared with Fox News Digital.