Chao Xian's Char siu 叉燒 recipe
(2 minutes reading time)
Char siu 叉燒 (Chinese BBQ pork) is a fantastic Hong Kong delicacy. But my cheat’s version is much more indulgent and rich.
The flavour I’ve recreated is closer to what you might sometimes get in Malaysia, especially from a (now long gone) restaurant in Kuala Lumpur’s Sungei Wang shopping centre called Super Noodles.
Please share your pics and tag me on Insta or Twitter! I’d love to see your Char Siu 叉燒 and will update this post with your pics 😊
UPDATE Wednesday 16th June 2020
Confession time: I never had a written down recipe for this before. Whenever I asked my mother, aunties or grandparents for the recipe for something they made, they’d always tell me they didn’t know… “Just make it!”
So I got some of the measurements wrong, and I’ve updated it below.
UPDATE Sunday 10th May 2020
I realised that I’d put too much soy sauce and honey in the recipe the first time I published this! Sorry, I’d only done this by eye before I wrote it down from memory… 😬
Ingredients
- 500g belly pork
- 250g hoisin sauce
- 1 tbsp oyster sauce
- 1 tbsp soy sauce
- 1-2 tspn honey
- 2 tspn sesame oil
Note: the Hoisin sauce I use isn’t a concentrated paste - it’s only about 15% soy bean. If you get the paste versions you’ll want to use just a couple table spoons worth. Maybe a bit of water to get more coverage.
Method
Mix the hoisin sauce with the oyster sauce, soy sauce, honey and sesame oil. Pour over the belly pork in an oven dish and make sure the pork is well covered. Marinade in the fridge overnight or at least 3 hours before cooking.
Line a roasting tin with foil and lightly cover in oil.
Heat your oven to 200º / 180º fan and cook for about 30-40 minutes. Whack it up to 240° / 220° for 5-10 minutes more for a nice charred texture.
Remove from the pan and with as much of the marinade as you can before it starts to cool - the honey makes it a caramelised glaze! Slice up the pork into chunks.
Serve with Thai jasmine rice, chiu chow chilli oil and a sweetheart cabbage (cooked in oyster sauce).
Recipe © Kelvin Gan 2024. All rights reserved.