Char Siu Roast Pork

Recipe taken and adapted from:

http://waisekmao.typepad.com/blog/2011/03/cha-siew-chinese-bbq-roasted-pork.html

Ingredients

• 1kg pork (shoulder works best)

• 5 tbsp PR light soy sauce

• 5 tbsp maltose (or honey or corn syrup)

• 4 tbsp white sugar

• 4 tbsp Shaoxing rice wine

• 4 tbsp Amoy hoisin sauce

• 3 tbsp PR dark soy sauce

• 3 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed

• 2-inch piece of ginger, sliced into 4 pieces and smashed

• red food coloring (optional)

Method

• Wash the pork and remove really large chunks of fat.

• In a medium saucepan, combine all the marinade ingredients except for the food coloring.  Heat this only until the sugar (and maltose, if using) dissolves.  If it gets too hot, cool it to room temperature.  Add food coloring, if using.

• Put the pork in a container that fits it snugly or a bag, then pour the marinade on top.  Let this marinate for at least 4 hours or overnight.  Try to ensure that all the surface areas get some marinade.

• Remove the pork from the fridge about 40 minutes before cooking, to allow it to return to room temperature.

• Preheat the oven to 210°C.

• Line a roasting pan with foil (for easy clean up).  Place a wire rack on top of the foil.  Lay the pork on the rack.  Roast in the oven for 15 minutes.

• Pour the marinade into a medium saucepan, remove the chunks of garlic and ginger, and heat to boiling, then keep simmering at a low heat to reduce the sauce.  It's been sitting with raw pork so you want to make sure to kill all the microbes.  Dirty foam will float to the top; skim this off and discard.

• After roasting for 15 minutes, baste the pork with the marinade and turn it over.  Reduce the heat to 180°C and roast for another 15 minutes.

• Baste the pork without turning and return to the oven for another 10 minutes.  Optional:  in the last 4 minutes, put the pork under the grill, 2 minutes for each side, basting each time.  This gives it a nice, pretty charred look that's characteristic of char siu.

• Remove the pork from the oven.  By now the foil will be covered with raised black bits and you'll be very glad you used it.  Baste both sides of the meat again with the reduced sauce, and let it sit on the wire rack for 10 minutes undisturbed before slicing.  Serve with the sauce.