this really isn’t so much about a recipe on making charsiu, or chinese-style roast pork so much a cooking and serving suggestion.
marinate your marbled pieces of pork – we used shoulder here which had a good ratio of meat to fat – for at least 24 hours. that tasty marinade needs the time to penetrate the steaks. I basically did a layer of marinade followed by a piece of pork, and ended up with another last bit of marinade over the last piece before cling-wrapping and fridging. at this point you can chop up garlic and throw it in to marinate, but I prefer to use garlic only while roasting.
on the day you want this, take the meat out of the fridge to rest so that you aren’t cooking directly from cold and place it on double-layered aluminium foil on a baking sheet. I’m just lazy to wash up so this method works well for me. always remember that it’s shiny-side down!
roast at 175C, or 160C on a fan oven for about 10 minutes or until you think your steaks are mostly cooked. charsiu isn’t really about pork that’s still pink in the middle, so going a little past that stage is still fine as long as the meat is tender and tasty. I then switch on the broiler, leaving the oven door open.
according to alton brown, this helps ensure that your thermostat doesn’t recognize that it’s already at the set temperature and keeps on heating. this high heat creates the perfect environment for your meat to crisp and char a little.
broil on both sides until you’re happy with it, since we all have different preferences for char. some recipes tell you to just stick the meat on skewers over a naked stove flame, but I don’t do this because i worry that the oil will splatter everything, and I hate cleaning.
always let meat rest at least 10 minutes before slicing, and serve over white rice. preferably with some wilted bokchoy as well.
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