Pork Char Siu - Cantonese Style Roasted Pork
Pork Char Siu - Cantonese Style Roasted Pork by Jagtpanther, adapted by JohnnyTruant.
I love Chinese food, but I think it's the hardest to get 'right'. However - Since I'm currently between jobs, I thought it would be quite nice to cook up some tasty Pork Char Siu for my hard working girlfriend.
Firstly - you will need the following ingredients:
Main marinade body:
- Hoi Sin Sauce - 3/8 cup
- Honey - 1/6 cup
- Soy Sauce - 1/4 cup
- Sherry - 1/4 cup (or rice wine)
- Sugar - 1 Tbsp
'Extra' ingredients to marinade:
- Red Food Coloring - 1 Tsp
- Ginger - 1 Tsp(I used fresh grated ginger)
- Sesame Oil - 1 Tsp
The Rest:
- 400g pork
- 200g rice
- bag of beansprouts
The extra ingredients are those that are not totally 100% neccesary, but those I feel add to the deliciousness of the dish.
Dump them all into a pot, and it should look something like this:
- Note, I've probably got the quantities slightly messed up in my sauce because I was trying to convert it to ML from Cups on the fly.
Mix it up well so it's just a slightly thick reddish-brown sauce. It should look like this (minus the 'bits)
I don't know how you guys get your meat, but I get it sliced up into medallions. Basically you want 'squares' of meat about 1" thick and 5-6" long, if possible.
Stick it in a dish and pour in the marinade.
Note that there are no little bits of shit in my sauce. The only Hoi Sin I could find on short notice was 'sauce in a jar' shit with little bits of water chestnut and crap - I just poured it through a sieve first to filter it all out and it comes out nice and clear.
You should really let this marinade for at least 6-8 hours, it is probably worth going overnight for the extra flavour.
Take them out and have a look - they should be nice and red. I know it's a bit of a cheat to use the food colouring but it looks fantastic and nobody's going to know anyway.
Heat the oven up to about 425'F (220'C). Here's a bit of a tricky park - get a grill rack and pan, and fill up the resevoir underneath with water to a bit underneath the rack itself and pop it in (no meat!).
This is a good time to catch up on your backlog of animu:
Leave it for about 10 minutes and open it up -careful of the steam! - slap on your meat onto the rack. Turn down the oven to 325'F (170'C) and cook for 40 minutes. You will want to flip them over then baste the meat every 10 minutes with a little of the marinade.
At T-minus 30 minutes, get your rice ready. 200g of rice to 300ml of water in a steamer. Set it for 25 minutes and you're good to go. (It takes an extra 5 minutes to get it ready because you never fucking wash up you slob!)
With 5 minutes to go, stop basting with marinade, and chuck a bit more honey onto the pork to glaze it. Also, get out your beanshoots. Pour a little sesame oil into a frying pan and chuck in a handful or two of the shoots.
After softening them up add some of the marinade and let it bubble away until you're serving up.
Remove your meat from the oven and check all is well. Slice the end off of one medallion and ensure it's both a: cooked and b: beautiful.
Slice it all up into 5mm wide strips. Finally - get out your rice and arrange it in a nice bed around the plate, scoop out some of the beanshoots and sauce and plonk it into the middle. Divide up your meat and lay it out nicely.
Psyduck gives this recipe:
Total time: 10 minutes to make marinade, 8 hours to marinade, 1 hour to cook. You could marinade in the morning before work, then just cook it up when you get back, as an idea.
Super easy print out and keep list: 1. Mix marinade, marinade for 8 hours 2. Water in grill pan for 10 mins @ 220'c (425'F) 3. Meat onto grill for 40 mins @ 170'c (325'F) 4. Turn/Baste meat every 10 mins 5. Cook rice at T-minus 25 minutes 6. At T-minus 5 minutes baste with honey, and fry up beanshoots with a little marinade 7. Serve
