Char Siu BBQ Pork

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Servings

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Ingredients

1 1/6 kg pork neck, also sold as collar or scotch fillet; cut into long strips about 6 cm thick

60 ml hoisin sauce
30 ml light soy sauce
15 ml dark soy sauce
60 ml honey
20 g brown sugar
30 ml Shaoxing wine
4 g Chinese five spice powder
3 garlic cloves, finely grated
15 ml neutral oil
15 g fermented red bean curd, optional, for the traditional colour and savoury depth; see substitutions (optional)

Cut the pork into long strips about 6 cm thick, so every piece has plenty of surface for glaze. Do not trim the fat; it is doing the work.
Mix the marinade and set aside 3 tablespoons of it in the fridge for later. Mash the red bean curd into the rest if using.
Marinate overnight. Put the pork and marinade in a bag or covered dish, refrigerate at least 12 hours and up to 24, turning once. This is the step that cannot be shortened. Anything under a few hours seasons only the surface.
Heat the oven to 200°C and set a rack over a roasting tray. Pour about 400 ml of water into the tray beneath the rack. That water catches drips and stops the sugary marinade smoking the kitchen out, and it keeps the oven humid so the pork does not dry.
Roast 25 minutes, then turn the pieces and roast another 20 minutes. The pork should be cooked through, about 74°C, and already darkening.
Glaze late and twice. Brush with the reserved marinade, roast 5 minutes, then brush generously with the loosened honey and roast a final 5 minutes until the edges char and go sticky. Honey earlier than this simply burns; the last ten minutes is the whole window.
Rest 10 minutes, then slice across the grain. Serve with rice, or cool completely and slice for the other dishes on this shelf.

Pork neck, not loin. Loin is too lean and comes out dry and stringy no matter how carefully you cook it. Neck, collar, scotch fillet and shoulder all have the marbling this needs. Ask a German butcher for Schweinenacken and a Canadian one for pork butt or collar.
The red colour is traditionally from fermented red bean curd, not food dye, though most restaurants use colouring too. Without either it tastes identical and simply looks browner, which is fine.
Water in the tray matters more than it sounds. Sugar dripping onto a hot dry tray burns and smokes badly.
This is a component as much as a dish. It slices into wor wonton soup, fried rice, chow mein and egg foo yong. Making a double batch is barely more work.
Keeps 4 days refrigerated and freezes very well sliced, in portions, with a little of the pan juices.

Fermented red bean curd (nam yu, sold in jars at Asian grocers in Germany and Canada) gives the classic colour and a deep fermented savouriness. It has no close substitute. Leaving it out is the normal home compromise; a teaspoon of miso plus a little extra hoisin gets partway to the savoury depth without the colour.
Hoisin sauce is essential and widely available in both countries. There is no good substitute; a mixture of soy, peanut butter, honey and five spice approximates it badly.
Shaoxing wine substitutes with dry sherry, or with stock plus a splash of rice vinegar for an alcohol-free marinade.