This beautiful salad started life as a grouping of composed ingredients in a green heart-shaped bowl. It's then tossed with chilled Japanese somen noodles and a shoyu-sesame dressing. You can google for your favorite recipe (read them through and you'll get the basic idea), but the basic ingredients remain the same: somen noodles, shredded omelet, pork (char siu and/or Spam), kamaboko (pink and white fishcake). We added daikon sprouts, carrots, and shredded surimi because our market was out of kamaboko.
It's the quintessentially Hawaiian salad—a blend of Asian influences that reflect the beauty of the islands—and I post it in honor of our trip. We leave this afternoon and I can already smell the sweet, soft fragrance of ginger and plumeria flowers carried on warm trade winds.
Aloha!
