As this site is based out of Asia, it is only fitting to go back to our roots and feature some local delicacies that can be done easily on any grill. Tonight’s treat….Char Siew Pork, Big Green Asian Egg style. This recipe is, as all are, dead easy and incredibly delicious! We served our Char Siew with baby Kai-Lan and vegetable fried rice. Don’t bother going down to the local restaurant when you can make tasty treats right at home.
So, what you’ll need to do the night before is simply make up the sauce. 3/4 of it will become the marinade and the other 1/4 will act as the basting and finishing sauce. The sauce goes a little like this:
In a small sauce pan add the following:
3/4 cup of quality honey
1/4 cup of dark soy sauce (that’s the really think gooey stuff!)
1/4 cup of rice wine
2 tsp of 5 Spice powder
4 drops of red food colouring
1/2 cup of Hoisin sauce
Heat over low heat but don’t let it simmer, just heat it up so that all the flavours combine nicely. At this point, let the sauce cool down and when it’s ready, simply add 3/4 of the sauce to your pork loin that’s waiting in a zip top bag. Keep the other 1/4 for the grilling. Squeeze all the air out of the bag and put it in a small bowl and into the fridge over night. The marinade will penetrate a bit but the colour it adds is wicked and you’ll use the rest of the sauce that you’ve reserved as a basting and finishing sauce.
Set up your grill for indirect heat. Add a small container of water to add a bit of moisture and you’re ready to rock that char siew. Stabilise your temperature at 280 F (140C-ish) and when ready add your pork loin to the grill and discard the marinade. Flip the loin every 2o minutes and baste with the remaining sauce that you saved earlier. Keep doing doing this until your internal temperature reaches 145F. For an extra punch, carefully remove your plate setter or move the loin to the hot part of the grill and crisp up the sauce. Careful here…don’t close the lid and keep turning otherwise you’ll burn the heck out of your pork loin after all that effort.
Now, once done, let the loin rest for about 5 minutes before slicing it thinly on a diagonal. Drizzle a little bit of the remaining sauce and serve with your baby kai-lan, simply fried up with some oyster sauce and loads of minced garlic and of course your fried rice.
Open a bottle of your favourite white wine and off you go….enjoy!
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Overall Heather Rating: 9/10 (could have been better as I forgot to crisp up the loin before I served it… too excited to eat!)