Honey Roasted Char Siu 蜜汁叉燒 (Cantonese: mut chup cha siu) is a recipe that I’ve been working on for over a year now. I wanted a recipe that has common ingredients and simple steps. All while maintaining the flavour and texture of authentic char siu. I finally made a recipe that I’m proud of and with minimal ingredients!
First, let’s talk about char siu. It’s a dish that’s everywhere so it’s easy enough to make, but hard enough that it's not always good. The cut of meat, the marinade, the cooking time and temperature are all factors that determine the result. Chinese BBQ shops have special racks and ovens to help them get the best results. But we can get similar results with our home ovens as well!
Char Siu is a Cantonese dish that was already around during the Shang Dynasty, over 3000 years ago. I’m sure the taste was different since soy sauce wasn’t around until the Qin Dynasty. However, it is likely that one of the original ingredients in the marinade is red yeast rice. Although some char siu recipes don’t include red yeast rice anymore, I feel it’s an important ingredient to add not just for it’s meat tenderizing properties, but to pay homage to this ancient delicacy. It’s also how char siu got its red colour.
In my Honey Roasted Char Siu 蜜汁叉燒 recipe, it requires 3 tbsp of red yeast rice sauce. This is the brine that you get in the red fermented bean curd jar in case you can’t find actual red yeast rice sauce. I also use honey instead of the usual maltose sugar because I find maltose very difficult and messy to use. The main difference between using maltose and honey is that maltose is firmer at room temperature so it can adhere to the pork after it cools down. We can offset this by baking the honey onto the pork so we can still get that special sweet and savoury signature char siu taste.
Leftover char siu can be used for fried rice and fried noodles. Perfect for Singapore Fried Rice Vermicelli 星洲炒米粉 and Silver Needle Noodles 銀針粉.
Honey Roasted Char Siu 蜜汁叉燒
Ingredients
- 900 g Pork shoulder , butt or belly
- 30 g Red fermented bean curd aka nan ru, nam yu (approx. 2 small cubes or 1 large)
- 3 tbsp Red fermented bean curd brine or red yeast rice sauce aka anka sauce
- 2 tbsp Light soy sauce
- 1 tbsp Oyster sauce
- 20 drops Red food colouring (optional)
- 2 tbsp Sugar
- 1 tsp Rose essence wine aka mei kuei lu chiew this will give you authentic Cantonese char siu flavour but you can use any cooking wine
- 1 tbsp Hoisin sauce
- 4 tbsp Hoisin sauce for basting
- 4 tbsp Honey for basting
Instructions
- Slice pork into strips of approx. 25mm or 1” thick and 50mm or 2” wide
- Make marinade by combining together 30 g red fermented bean curd, 3 tbsp red yeast rice sauce, 2 tbsp light soy sauce, 1 tbsp oyster sauce, 20 drop red food colouring (optional), 2 tbsp sugar, 1 tsp rose essence wine and 1 tbsp hoisin sauce
the red yeast rice is often not enough to give the meat too much of a red colour, so red food colouring will help enhance the red on the meat - Break apart red fermented bean curd and mix everything together.
I find using disposable food-prep gloves is the easiest way - Cover the pork completely with the marinade
- Place the pork into a zipper plastic bag and pour marinade into the bag
- Lie the bag flat on one side and place into refrigerator for 24-48 hours. After 10 hours, flip the bag to the other side for even marinating. Take the pork out of the fridge approx. 1-2 hours (depending on the ambient temperature of your home) before cooking to bring the pork to room temperature. I recommend marinating for 48 hours if you can wait.
- Place the pork onto the baking rack
- Prepare 4 tbsp hoisin sauce and basting brush
- Apply half of hoisin sauce to the top of the pork
- Place into oven, set temperature to low broil (230˚C or 450˚F) and bake on middle rack for 10 minutes
- Turn the pork over, baste with the rest of the hoisin sauce and bake for 10 minutes
- Prepare 4 tbsp honey
- Turn the pork over, baste with a coat of honey and bake for 5-8 minutes or until the edges are slightly charred
- Turn the pork over, baste with the rest of the honey and bake for the last 5-8 minutes
- Check for doneness
- Remove from oven and let rest for 5 minutes
- Slice and serve
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