Whenever I go to England, I always need a few days to reorient myself. I use those days to come to grips with the fact that people drive on the wrong side of the road, traffic circles are scary, my Californian speech sticks out like a sore thumb, and trying to memorize the coins is a lost cause. It’s okay, I’ll just sip a bit more tea to calm the senses. I’ve made a promise to myself that I’ll try my best not to gain 10 pounds while I’m in England. This problem is REAL. One milk chocolate digestive biscuit quickly turns into 5. One small nibble of a Cadbury’s Flake bar quickly turns into the whole thing. My yearning for good chocolate knows no bounds, but you knew that already. For those two weeks, it’s highly unlikely that I will have much time in the kitchen. So I’m putting my cooking on hyperdrive right now, starting with this udon bowl with five spice slow cooker pork. I know I’ve waxed poetic about the melt-in-your mouth tenderness of pork from a slow cooker, but I wasn’t exaggerating. There’s just the perfect amount of fat in pork shoulder that makes the meat soft and juicy. The pairing of the pork with udon noodles is just for fun. We’re all about having fun in the kitchen here. When you’re making udon, just remember that like pasta, the udon noodles with soak up any water in sight. If you want to make this dish into a noodle soup, you should probably prepare a separate pot of broth that you’ll serve with the cooked noodles. I was perfectly fine with them being less soupy. Garnish the noodles with any vegetables you like! Want another slow cooker recipe? Try this Asian Slow Cooker Pork with Zucchini, Carrot & Apple Noodles!
