Char Siu 叉燒, aka Cantonese Barbecue Pork, is delicious! It’s commonly found in many dishes in Hong Kong. It can go with just plain rice, or inside a bun or steamed bun, or fry with noodles and rice, there are so many possibilities that you can do with it. It has great flavor and some sweet glazing on top.
Some traditional restaurants in Hong Kong may add some red food coloring to make the Char Siu look nicer. But we are not going to do that, after all, we are making this food for ourselves. Using Char Siu Sauce is a shortcut to make it, it will not taste 100% like what you taste in a restaurant, but it’s good and easy enough. There’s definitely plenty of recipes out there sharing how to make it with a more genuine taste without Char Siu sauce, but today we are trying an easy way.
Not sure if you heard of Stephen Chow or not, but he’s a famous Hong Kong director and actor who produced a lot of great comedy movies. In one of his movies “The God of Cookery 食神”, there’s this dish “Sorrowful Rice 黯然銷魂飯” that features Char Siu with a sunnyside egg with rice – just like what I made in the feature picture!
Char Siu Cantonese Barbeque Pork (Easy Version)
Ingredients
- 600 g Pork Shoulder (Pork neck is also good)
- 1 tbsp Maltose Syrup (Alternatively Honey or Maple Syrup if you can't find)
Marinade
- 3 tbsp Char Siu Sauce (Lee Kum Kee)
- 1 tbsp Shaoxing wine (Or other rice wine that you have)
- 1 tbsp Dark Soy Sauce
- 4 Slices Ginger
- 3 Cloves Garlic
Optional
- Rice
- Sunnyside Egg
- Green Vegetables (Chinese Broccoli is a good choice)
- Sweet Soy Sauce
Instructions
- Marinate overnight: In a Ziploc bag, put the pork and marinate together. If the pork is too long, cut them into smaller pieces to become long strips of around 20cm. Close the bag, try to squeeze all the air out. “Massage” the pork a bit to make sure all the marinade covers the meat. Leave it in the fridge overnight.
- Prepare the oven: Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celcius. Wrap the utensil you are going to use in the oven with foil. The marinade will get burn easily.
- Take the pork out of the marinade: Take the pork from the Ziploc bag, keep the marinade aside. I decided to use some skewers to “levitate” the pork to keep hor air flowing beneath the pork when roasting. So I poke a skewer through each of the pork strips. If you don’t have a skewer, it’s okay, it will still work.
- Time to cook! Put the pork in the oven. Brush some of the marinades on top. Keep repeating it every 8-10 mins. After the first 2 times, flip the pork over. Repeat it another 2-3 times.
- Final glaze: The pork should be ready after 35-40mins. It should look cooked but not burnt yet. Mix the maltose syrup/honey/maple syrup with the remaining marinade, and put a final glaze on the pork. With the extra sugar on top, now you need to watch out carefully and make sure it’s not going to turn into charcoal! It should take another 5-10 mins to reach a beautiful glossy state, maybe slightly burnt, but not completely black. If it’s still not ready, feel free to put another layer of the sweet marinade, and be patient to wait until it reaches the perfect state!
- Serve with the optional sides: Remember to slice to pork diagonally, this will make it looks nicer too! Add a sunnyside egg, some veggies, and rice to go with the Char Siu you just made! If it’s too much, just go with some rice that is already tasty enough! Put some of the sauce from the baking dish to mix with your rice, or some sweet soy sauce to go with it!