Easy Black Char Siew
Easy Black Char Siew. Simple and delicious with no artificial coloring. Juicy, succulent, beautifully caramelised Chinese BBQ pork with just the right amount of char.
Servings: 3 pax
Ingredients
Meat
- 1 kg shoulder pork (五花肉 or 梅花肉）
Seasoning
- 3 tsp ground white pepper
- 3 tsp light soy sauce
- 4 tbsp oyster sauce
- 4 tbsp dark soya sauce (the thick kind)
- 4 tbsp honey
- 3 tbsp sugar (preferably brown)
- 3 tsp Chinese wine
- 3 tsp sesame oil
- 7-8 cloves garlic (skin on & crushed)
- Juice of half a lemon
Instructions
- Wash and clean the pork. Let it sit for a while to drain away any remnant liquid. The meat should be relatively dry when it’s marinated.
- Add the seasoning to the pork, give it a good rub and let it chill in the fridge for ~ 1 -2 hours to marinate well.
- Preheat oven or air fryer to 180C. Grill the pork on each side for 15 minutes. Make sure to baste well during the process. Check at 30min. Meat should be nicely caramelised with a nice char at the edges.
- Whilst the meat is roasting, pour the remaining marinade into a small pot and make a sauce. Cook it on medium heat and let it boil briskly for a minute. Take off heat, the sauce is ready.
- Remove the char siew from the oven and leave to cool for 5min. Cut into nice succulent slices, line with some freshly cut cucumber slices and serve immediately with rice and sauce on the side. Enjoy.
Video
Notes
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#1 Cut of meat
For a good Char Siew, a shoulder pork cut (五花肉 or 梅花肉) with streaks of 20-30% fat would give a most perfect juicy succulent roast.
Ask your butcher for the right cut and get them to slice it into neat strips perfect for char siew. Give the meat a really good rub with salt and wash thoroughly to get rid of any gamey-ness. Make sure to let the meat sit for a while to drain off any remnant liquid. The meat will soak in the marinade well when it’s clean and dry.
#2 Make ahead
This Black Char Siew is a great make ahead as it freezes well. I always buy a bigger cut and make extra portions when I marinade. Once marinated, I’ll cook one portion and freeze the others. This Black Char Siew keeps well and will last 1-2 weeks in the freezer until ready to cook.
When ready to cook, take out the required portion the night before and defrost it in the fridge overnight. Once defrosted, roast it as per the recipe steps and voila, you have delicious Black Char Siew, freshly roasted and irresistible!
#3 Don’t skip the lemon 🍋
As with all Chinese BBQ pork recipes, this Black Char Siew has a fair amount of sweetness. Sometimes it can be a tad too cloyingly sweet for me and that’s when the lemon comes in.
I love lemons. Lemon is a great meat tenderizer and adding it to the marinade improves the texture of meat making the char siew super tender. More importantly, IMHO the acidity of the lemon notches up the taste complexity and lifts the flavor and sweetness of the char siew to a whole new level. Therefore, don’t skip the lemon.
#4 The right dark sauce
All dark sauces are created equal but some are more equal than others. To get this Black Char Siew right, you will want to use dark soya sauce that is thicker and more viscous.
There are some brands of dark soya sauce that are thinner and of lower viscosity. Skip those if you can, cause they are less likely to give that nice black color and that sticky sheen and char. A thick and viscous dark soya sauce will give the Black Char Siew its rich coloring and sweet flavor and that most addictive sticky char when roasted.
#5 Juiciness vs Char-ness
Truth be told (very rarely but once in a while), the Sugar Crumble does sometimes over-roast her char siew because she was relentlessly chasing that perfect charred edge (which is super delicious and addictive btw) and regrettably ended up with dry and less than juicy char siew.
If you are like this household who all love the charred and most fatty bits, get the char-ness right. Just before the char siew is done, place it at the highest rack in the oven on high heat for 1 min or so to char quickly. Always go for short spurts of high heat to char and never exceed 1 minute or so of extra cooking time.
Trust me, nicely charred but dry char siew is never great. We want the meat juicy; so if you ever lose your way, let this be your holy grail - ALWAYS err on the side of juiciness.
Every oven can be different so please do experiment with yours to get that perfect sweet spot of juiciness and chow tar-ness. Fighting! 💪🏼💪🏼