Char Siew Pork (Chinese BBQ Pork)

A delicious and simple recipe for a Chinese-restaurant classic which you can make at home.

One thing that I miss about living in Malaysia is being able to nip to the wet market in the morning or  a kopitiam that selling ready make char siew that they will served with chicken rice.

Usually the char siew pork you find often has a tinge of red in the meat as they either use red  food colouring  or red fermented beancurd. 

I find that it is easier to prepare this dish a night before serving or make it first thing in the morning so that the meat has had some time to marinat before roasting. 

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 2 tbsp brown sugar
• 3 tbsp runny honey and 2 tbsp for extra
• 3 tbsp hoisin sauce
• 1 tbsp oyster sauce 
• 1/2 tbsp dark soya sauce
• 1 tbsp soya sauce
• 1 1/2 tsp five spice powder
• 2 cloves garlic, finely grated
• 1 inch garlic, finely grated 
• 500g pork tenderloin 

Method:

Place all the ingredients for the marinade into a bowl and whisk to combine.

Place the pork into a large ziplock freezer bag and pour the marinade inside. Make sure the pork is well coated in the marinade. Place the bag into the fridge and leave it to marinade for 2-3 hours or preferably overnight.

When you are ready to roast the pork, take it out of the fridge  and let it come to room temperature in the marinade. 

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Place a roasting  rack inside a large baking tray and fill the tray with boiling water. The rack needs to be high enough so that when the meat is sitting on top of the rack, the meat should not touch the water. The water helps to create a steam in the oven to cook the pork and keep it moist.

Place the pork on the roasting rack and roast for about 30 minutes, basting every 10 minutes or so.

Meanwhile, pour the reserved marinade into a small saucepan and add the extra 2 tablespoons of honey. Bring the sauce to a boil and simmer gently for a few minutes. Use this sauce to baste the pork. 

After 30 minutes, turn the oven to grill mode on high heat, if possible, place the tray high as possible in the oven under the grill. Baste the pork generously every 3-5 minutes, making sure that it is browning nicely and doesn't burn. Once the pork has caramelised nicely, remove the tray from the oven.

Let the park rest for about 10 minutes before slicing.