Chinese bbq pork is also called ‘Char Siu’ is actually pretty straightforward to make and you can make it at home even better. This pork is very versatile and you can put on rice or noodles or stuff it in a bun. If you have a big chunk of pork, just cut it into three nice long strips and begin to marinate. For the marination, pace your soy sauce into a bowl, some shouting Chinese wine, if you bant find Chinese wine, you can use dry sherry as well or if you wanted to leave alcohol out, just use a little bit of chicken stock. Add honey, like the Chinese version of barbeque marinade, it’s beautiful with Chinese five-spice flavor, add brown sugar as well, place the sauce and finely grated garlic, some Chinese five-spice for that beautiful spice aroma, soy sauce and a good teaspoon of salt as well.
Now to get that restaurant-style classic red color for our pork without using additives. Use beetroot powder and you can find that in a lot of health food stores, that is going to give us a beautiful natural red color. Give that a good mix then takes a resealable bag and pop out your pork into the bag. This is so much easier than using a bowl, also with that red food coloring you want to make sure that you are not staining any of your utensils. Pour your marinade over carefully int the bag then close that nice and tight and give it a good shake and really massage that marinade into the pork. You want to get that in the fridge overnight, a few hours will do it a pinch but if you really want the pork to soak up all the flavors and colors as well then let it sit as long as it can. Once you have given your pork enough time to marinate, take that out of the bag and onto a baking tray with some foil underneath to save you from washing the sticky marinade.
Pour a little water over the tray to help steam up then place it in the oven for 20 minutes. For the beautiful sauce that remained in the mixing bag, pour it into a saucepan and e are going t use that as a basting sauce, you can also use it as a side sauce for serving the pork. Bring that to a boil then turn the heat down and let that gently bubble and simmer away until its nice, thick and glossy. Take your pork from the oven and brush them on the top with your sauce, turn the pork over and brush the other side then back in the oven for 20 more minutes to cook that pork through. Remove the pork from the oven then slice and eat. There are so many recipes you can make at this point and serve it with some steamed rice, cucumber and a little bit of that leftover sauce that you made.
Ingredients;
- 1.5 kg (3.3 lb) piece pork neck
- ¼ cup hoisin sauce
- ¼ cup brown sugar
- ¼ cup Chinese wine
- ¼ cup honey
- 3 tbsp light soy sauce
- 1 tsp sea salt
- ½ tsp Chinese 5-spice powder
- 3 garlic cloves, finely grated
- 1 tbsp beetroot powder
Instructions;
- Slice the pork neck lengthways to form 3 long pieces.
- Place all ingredients except the pork into a large bowl and mix until well combined.
- Place the pork and the marinade in a ziplock bag.
- Seal and shake well until the pork is evenly coated. Set aside to marinate in the fridge overnight.
- Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F.
- Line a roasting tray with foil. Place a rack on top. Remove the pork pieces from the marinade and place onto the rack.
- Pour water into the bottom of the roasting tin. The water and the foil will help to stop the sweet marinade from burning on your roasting tray. Cook in preheated oven for 20 minutes.
- In the meantime, pour the marinade out of the ziplock bag and into a small saucepan over medium heat.
- Bring to the boil and simmer for 5 minutes or until thickened slightly. Remove from heat and divide the mixture between 2 bowls.
- One half will be for basting and the other can be used as a serving sauce.
- Remove the pork from the oven. Baste both sides of the pork with the thickened marinade.
- Place back into the oven to cook for another 20 minutes or until cooked through.
- Remove from the oven, add another layer of basting sauce and rest for 10 minutes before slicing.
