My family likes our somen night dinners. My son loves somen and is a minimalist when it comes to sauce and toppings. He likes the somen cold with a cold Japanese tsuyu sauce on it. If prompted, he will put some shredded shoyu pork or sliced scrambled egg on it. The rest of us like to put all kinds of toppings–Korean style on our somen. Shredded shoyu pork, lightly salted sliced cucumbers, kimchi, sliced scrambled egg, bean sprouts, eggplant, zucchini, etc. It is basically a bibimbap but with noodles.

Since the shoyu pork is just one of the toppings, I used to ask my husband to pick up a few pieces from Kawamoto’s or K’s Drive In. But since I have been working from home recently, I have had the time to make my own shoyu pork. Misty has a great recipe for shoyu pork for the slow cooker if you want to make a large amount but for this dinner, I need much less than 8-10 pounds of shoyu pork. I used the Hawaiian Electric recipe that calls for about 2 pounds of pork. The recipe calls for belly pork, but I used pork shoulder instead. I cut it into cubes and browned it. I then added garlic and ginger to the pot and let that cook for a few minutes. Next, I added 1/4 cup of shoyu and 2 T of sugar and some salt and let it simmer for about 2 1/2 hours. Once it is cooked, I just put that aside to cool off so I can shred it for somen night. Living Hilo Style.