Char Siu aka BBQ Pork

Hello

안녕하세요

(Annyeonghaseyo)

こんにちは

(Konnichiwa)

你好

(Ni Hao)

Back in February it was Lunar New Year aka Chinese New Year and I wanted to do something for me and Skye to celebrate it too, so I hunted online for Chinese recipe's and decided on making Char Siu.

Let's get cooking!

Ingredients:

700g rindless pork belly

For The Marinade:

4 garlic cloves, finely chopped

Thumb-sized piece ginger, peeled and finely chopped

4 tbsp tomato ketchup

4 tbsp hoisin sauce

4 tbsp golden caster sugar

2 tbsp dark soy sauce

2 tbsp rice vinegar

2 tbsp sunflower oil

Mix together all your ingredients for the marinade and leave to one side.

Next put your pork belly into a roasting tin and then pour over the marinade.

Cover and chill them overnight, I didn't chill mine overnight as I didn't look at the recipe properly until I was ready to cook, I chilled them for 30-60 minutes.

Heat your oven to 160C/Fan 140C/Gas Mark 3 and cover the tin with foil and cook for 3 1/2 hours, basing every hour.

Increase the temperature to 180C/Fan 160C/Gas Mark 4, remove the foil, baste the pork and continue to cook for a further 45 minutes until it's beginning to caramelise around the edges.

Remove the pork from the tin and set aside to rest for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, spoon away any fat from the tin and transfer the sauce to a small pan.

Slice the pork, and pop back into the tin.

Warm the sauce in the pan, then pour over the meat and toss everything together.

Serve however you like.

This was the first time I've had pork belly and I really enjoyed it, as you can see, I served ours with rice and it worked really well together.

I'd happily cook this again, it was really tasty and it practically melted in the mouth, I'd definitely make more of the marinade next time round as for me it seemed to cook away before I could make any sauce out of it.

It was really easy and simple to cook and I think it would be easy for any novice cook.

If you want to give the recipe I followed a once over, then head over to the BBC's Good Food Char Siu (BBQ Pork) recipe page.

See you soon!

안녕

(Annyeong)

さようなら

(Sayonara)

再见

(ZaiJian)

Bye