CHAR SIU (CHINESE BBQ PORK) 叉烧
In my inaugural post I wrote about the trauma that came with using our smoker to roast some ducks Cantonese-style. Apparently we are suckers for punishment, because we did the same thing again, but this time we added Chinese barbecued pork, char siu, or 叉烧 to the mix. For me, the experience of making char siu for the first time ever was akin to confronting a lifelong fear. Not because I’m scared of pork or pointy metal hooks, but because char siu is probably my favourite food of all time. (Those who know me may be surprised that I didn’t choose potatoes - I surprised myself too.) I cannot overstate how much I love it - it would 100% be my last meal of choice, along with some steamed rice and Chinese greens. Really, truly excellent char siu is incredibly rare to find nowadays if you’re as picky as I am. The texture of the meat has to be just right, tender and still slightly juicy, with the right amount of fat (it’s often far too lean as restaurants cater more towards health-conscious patrons), and the glaze has to be just sticky enough and not too saucy. Not to mention the delicate balance of the sweet and savoury flavour. Professional chefs don’t even always get it right. The last time I had excellent char siu was about 6 years ago at a non-descript roadside restaurant in Tai Po Village, an outer suburb in the New Territories of Hong Kong. 6 YEARS. So the prospect of us attempting to duplicate this dish made me really, really nervous. Doubly nervous as an Asian.
I had no idea where to even start. Google seemed like a good choice. After what seemed like hours (probably not) and nearly getting lost in a vortex of various char siu recipes, I decided to try the recipe from The Woks of Life - and I’m glad I did! And, thankfully, the prep process is nowhere near as time consuming or extensive as the roast duck. Lazy farmer approves. What you should take the time to do, however, is choose the right cut of pork. And by the right cut, I mean the fattier cut. I know, in today’s world of vegan/gluten free/low fat/low salt/dairy free/low cholesterol/no sugar/no fun mindset (I kid…mostly) fat is often the pariah of the food world. But - and you know this is true - fat = FLAVOUR. And texture. It makes the meat taste better, and stay juicier. It’s the reason meat-eaters will pay unreasonable amounts of money for a well-marbled Wagyu or Kobe beef steak (I am one of these meat-eaters), why sushi lovers order the fatty tuna or toro (also me), and potatoes taste better when cooked in duck fat. (The mention of potatoes here is not a consolation prize for not choosing them as my final meal.) Obviously if you’re eating copious amounts of fatty meat every day you probably need to reassess some of your choices, but if not, then…don’t fight the fat.
I had originally wanted to use pork neck to do this as it’s an incredibly marbled cut of meat, but as the butchers didn’t seem to have any that day, we settled on using some pork butt/pork shoulder instead, which is also a fattier cut. You’ll need to cut the pork butt into strips about 3 inches (6-7 cm) in diameter, so that you don’t end up with giant discs of pork when you slice up the char siu. Then you simply rub the marinade all over the pork, cover and refrigerate overnight. So there is an element of patience involved, but the prep at least is negligible and, as in life, all GREAT things are worth the wait.
Our smoker really stretches this theory to the limit. Here is a picture of the damned thing, our ever-fickle friend:
Looks harmless, right? Don’t let it fool you. It never cooperates until the last minute, right when you’re about to give up - it’s like it knows. It knows how badly you want to eat the food that will cook inside of it, knows the lengths you’ll go to to make it happen, and really makes sure that you work for it. Bastard.
In the end though, the emotional turmoil is always worth it. So far, anyway. Because after hours and hours of torment, the heat settles, becomes steady, and you get this:
The Roommate and I were practically salivating when we were greeted by the above sight. I could already picture him sneaking out of bed at 3am to snack on the juicy little morsels (in the dark, of course). As good as they looked, I was still nervous about making the first cut. Would it be too dry? Too lean? Would it be the right colour? Sweet enough? This was a big deal - I would be so disappointed if I had botched one of my favourite foods. As I sliced into the first piece, I couldn’t help grinning - it wasn’t dry!! In fact, it was pretty glorious. I’m not saying this is on par with that amazing char siu I had 6 years ago, but it was pretty damn close. The texture was there, the fat content was good, and the colour was close to spot on. The only tweaks I would make for next time (because there will definitely be so many next times) is slightly less soy sauce in the marinade, and a little extra honey in the final glaze. But to give you an idea of how good it was, we were so focused on eating the char siu that the first piece was almost finished before I even remembered to take a photo.
The photo makes it look pretty lean but I assure you, there were heaps of juicy fatty bits in there. I think I may have eaten that whole thing standing up. I also felt like I hit peak Asian that night. Both in a culinary and personal sense. This was THE ultimate Chinese dish for me. Nothing fancy or complex, but it’s often the simplest dishes that are the most difficult to accomplish well, because there’s nothing for it to hide behind. I finally confronted my holy grail of food, and it wasn’t a failure - in fact, it was pretty f—ing good. Not perfect, but I’m happy to practice as much as needed. The crowning moment was when The Roommate declared, “You should be proud of this.” If I didn’t have a mouth full of pork at the time, I would’ve answered, “I am.”
*Also shout out to The Roommate for continuing to battle the smoker for supremacy, and for the existential crisis he goes through every time we use it. He hath no Patience, but Persistence he doth possess in abundance.
I had to include this photo mainly because it contained the literal last of our choi sum from the farm. Also because it was delicious.
Ingredients:
1-2kg boneless fatty pork, like pork neck or pork butt/pork shoulder, cut into 3 inch wide strips
1/4 cup white sugar
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp Chinese five-spice powder
1/2 tsp sesame oil
1/2 tsp white pepper
1 tbsp Chinese cooking wine
1 tbsp (or slightly less) light soy sauce
1 tbsp hoisin sauce
2 tsp molasses
1/2 tsp or splash red food colouring (optional)
4 cloves garlic, finely minced
2 tbsp honey (or maltose, but honey will be sweeter)
1 tbsp hot water
Method:
1. Combine all ingredients except the honey and hot water in a large mixing bowl (setting aside about 2-3 tbsps of it in a separate small bowl), then rub the marinade into the pork pieces. Cover and refrigerate overnight.
2. We shovelled hot coals into our smoker to get it up to 200C (so the meat doesn’t actually get smoked) but you can obviously do this in an oven - preheated to 225C (425F-450F). Set a rack on top of a lined roasting pan (to catch any drippings). Place the pieces of pork on the rack and roast for about 40 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through to ensure even colouring. With the smoker, we just hung the meat so it wouldn’t need turning.
3. After 40 minutes, mix the remaining marinade with the honey and hot water, then baste the pork generously on all sides with the mixture. You can do this more than once if you want a thicker coating of glaze. Roast for another 10-15 minutes, then remove the pork from the oven. You can baste it again if there’s enough marinade leftover. Then slice it up and serve!
Note: We made an insane amount of char siu, but it really is best if it’s eaten within a day of being cooked. When we tried another piece two days later we found that, despite being covered and refrigerated, it was already noticeably drier when reheated. So now you have the perfect excuse to eat as much char siu as you can in one sitting.