Honey-glazed char siu, from a home oven

Ingredientsserves 6

Equipment

• An oven, and a rack over a foil-lined tray
• A pastry brush
• A probe thermometer
• No oven: an air fryer at 160°C for eight minutes a side, then glazed until the edges catch, in batches; or a lidded frying pan on a low heat, with the glaze going on only at the end

How the time splits

1. 15 minCut the strips and mix the marinadehands on
2. 8 hrMarinating in the fridge, four hours to overnighthands off
3. 35 minIn the oven under foil, turned oncehands off
4. 15 minGlaze, turn, and stay at the ovenhands on
5. 10 minResting before slicinghands off

Method

1. Cut the pork along the grain into strips 3 to 4 cm thick; thinner and it dries out. Mix the char siu sauce, chu hou paste, light soy, rose wine, five-spice, salt, sugar and 南乳, turn the strips through it and leave them in the fridge for four hours at least, overnight better.
2. Heat the oven to 200°C fan (15 to 20 degrees more for a conventional oven). Line a tray with foil, add a little water, set a rack over it and lay the strips on the rack, keeping the marinade. Cover loosely with foil.
3. Roast twenty minutes, turn the strips, and roast fifteen more.
4. Stir the maltose into 1 tbsp of hot water and mix it into the kept marinade. Take the foil off, brush the strips and give them five to ten minutes a side, brushing once more in between, until the edges char and the glaze sets. Once the sugar is on, do not leave the oven: glazing too early is the failure everyone meets with this dish, black outside and still raw within. If the colour is slow to come, use the top grill for the last three minutes.
5. A thermometer in the thickest part should read 71°C, or cut one open and see no pink juice. Rest it ten minutes before slicing, or the juice runs out onto the board.
6. Slice on the diagonal, reduce the juices from the tray a little and pour them over.

Take care

• Pork, soy, wheat, sesame (in the sauces), alcohol. Cook the pork through, to 71°C at the thickest part. The glaze burns easily: line the tray, keep the oven door shut, and expect smoke if the sugar catches.

The story

The red meat in the roast-meat shop window, named for the fork it was roasted on over the fire, and the thing every Hong Kong child was sent out to buy half a catty of on the way home. It is a 功夫菜 not because it is hard but because it needs a night in a marinade and an oven. Most Hong Kong flats had no oven, so nobody made it at home. It took moving abroad, and a kitchen with an oven in it for the first time, for char siu to become something families made themselves.

Same kind

Crackling roast pork bellyBraised shiitake in oyster sauceConpoy and whole garlic, steamed and turned out

Lo Fo Tong is cultural food-heritage reference, not medical advice. If you are pregnant, unwell or on medication, talk to your doctor or registered practitioner before changing what is in the pot.