What's up everyone?
Today my dad will be teaching us how to make
Char Siu, or Chinese barbecue pork
If you're new to Char Siu
it's an extremely juicy, sweet, and savory pork dish
And it's a popular entree on its own
And a pleasant addition to many different types of noodles
Rice dishes, and pastries like cha siu bao
For our gigantic Lunar New Year feast this year
My dad made char siu
because it has a few tie-ins to Chinese traditions and superstitions
Which you’ll learn about later on in the video
By my estimates, my dad has made char siu at least 10,000 times
Over his 50 years as a Chinese chef
So I’m really excited to document his recipe
To share it with you
And to pass it on to our kids one day
Happy New Year!
Be sure to stick around til the end
To celebrate Lunar New Year with us
And to learn about all of my dad’s secrets
Like how to get char siu perfectly red on the outside
And tender on the inside
And how some Chinese markets get away
With charging more for their char siu
I wanted to make a special shoutout
To thank our wonderful Patreon supporters for helping bring this video to life
If you're looking for a written version of this recipe
Check out our blog post at madewithlau.com
Where you'll find an adjustable list of ingredients
And step-by-step videos to guide you
As you make the recipe at home. Hope you guys enjoy!
Hello friends! I hope all of you are doing well!
Today I'll be sharing with everyone
Our family recipe for char siu
Char siu originally comes from Cantonese cuisine
And the word chā sīu 叉烧 literally means “fork roasted”
Which is a nod to the traditional cooking method
Of skewering seasoned pork with long forks
And placing them in an oven or over a fire
Although it’s considered a Chinese dish
Many other Asian cuisines have integrated char siu into their own dishes
Like char siew rice all across Southeast Asia
Or ramen in Japan
In ancient times, char siu used to be made with wild boar or other available meats
But nowadays it’s almost always made with a fatty cut of pork
What we've chosen is pork butt
We call it mùih táu in Chinese
mùih táu is pork butt
You buy it in large pieces, up to five or six pounds
Even six or seven pounds
When I buy it
It's all done
When you cut it, do long strips like this
Don't cut across the grain
Cut each strip about an inch thick
Just about there is fine
The whole strip will be about this big
We got a ton of questions about the best cuts of meat to use
From our Patreon community and Instagram followers
My dad uses pork butt
Also known as "Boston butt” or "pork shoulder”
And this seems to be among the most popular cuts for char siu
It’s ideal to use more fatty cuts
So some other options would be the pork neck end or pork belly
Before we marinate the meat
We first use a fork to poke it
When we marinate it, meat will absorb the flavor better
Poke it like this
Poke lots of holes close together
Then the meat will absorb it better
My dad is spending about 2 minutes poking the meat
We're done poking it
See?
The meat and its grain are long like this
There are layers of meat and fat
Remember
Cut with the grain, not across it
All right, we've prepared the pork
Next, we’ll start preparing our marinade for the pork
For 2 lb of meat
We'll add 1 tbsp garlic salt, 4 tbsp brown sugar
2 tbsp oyster sauce, 2 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tbsp hoisin sauce, 2 tbsp red wine
1 tbsp shaoxing wine, 1 cube fermented bean curd,
and 1 tsp five spice powder
Today, I'm specially using this red wine
Using red wine can bring out more of the red color
It won't be so dark
You can see this wine has some lemon in it
I put the lemon in there right after I bought the wine
Why's that?
I like the lemon taste
It's more fragrant when you use it to cook
That's the way our family does it
Also, I'm putting in a piece of fermented bean curd
It has a very particular fragrance
Also, the fermented bean curd's natural red color will boost the color of the meat
If you don't have fermented bean curd, it's not necessary
I'm putting in one piece of fermented bean curd
The last ingredient to highlight is our five spice powder
Or ńgh hēung fán 五香粉 in Cantonese
Which is an umbrella for the popular Chinese blends of spices
That usually consist of cinnamon, fennel seeds,
Star anise, cloves, and peppers
The number 5 doesn’t necessarily literally mean that it has 5 ingredients
As some blends use less spices
And some blends use way more than 5 ingredients
Five spice powder is actually a nod to the 5 traditional Chinese elements
Earth, fire, water, wood, and metal
And it's a balancing act of the 5 traditional flavors of Chinese cuisine
Salty, spicy, sour, sweet, and bitter
The marinade is finished now
Mash the fermented bean curd to mix it in
We're not using red food coloring here
If you want to use it, you can
If not, then don't put any
Our family doesn't use red food coloring
Do restaurants typically use red food coloring?
Yes, restaurants and other places use red food coloring
They want the red to be brighter
If it's at home, that's not necessary
We usually don't use it at home
If you’re committed to getting that vibrant red exterior
A lot of traditional recipes will use ingredients like
Red fermented bean curd or red yeast rice powder
An easy alternative is just to use red food coloring
Which doesn’t affect the taste
For almost all of our recipes,
We film everything twice just to have more camera angles
So for this one, we made a batch with half a teaspoon of red food coloring
And a batch without it
For comparison, you can see what both versions look like
After they’ve been cooked and chopped
They both taste the exact same
Which is to say, they are absolutely amazing
We're all ready now
Good, that's tasty!
The marinade is finished
Let's start marinating the meat
Place the meat into a ziploc bag
Pour the sauce in
And massage the pork for about 2 minutes
So that the sauce is able to finesse its way into the meat
Afterwards, we’ll push all the air out of the bag and seal it
Ideally, it'll go for at least 8 hours
Many people go overnight
It's best not to let it go past 24 hours
It's a hard limit of 24 hours
If you let it go past 24 hours, the meat will get hard
Understand?
Usually, 8 hours is enough for us
I think that 8 hours is sufficient
It's not a very big piece of meat
It's not quite an inch thick
Right? That's it
If you want it to go faster, press down on it
Massage the meat a little
Help it absorb faster
If you want to eat it the same night
Marinate it in the morning, don't refrigerate it, and just leave it out
Just like this
It won't go bad
Because it's covered in these juices, the meat won't spoil
Don't cook it straight from the refrigerator
After taking it out from the refrigerator, let it rest for an hour
Let the meat come to room temperature
Don't cook it cold from the refrigerator, understand?
You must rest it outside of the refrigerator
It needs to be at room temperature
That's all done
The meat is all marinated
Next, we'll prepare our pork for the oven
To make char siu, you'll need a few things
A baking pan, a baking rack
Tongs, and aluminum foil
This is optional, but you might also want to use a meat thermometer
That allows you to monitor the internal temperature of the pork as it’s cooking
My dad literally chuckled at me when I asked him about this and said
"We don’t cook this way"
But since I haven’t yet acquired my dad’s intuition in the kitchen
I like to use these to whenever I cook big pieces of meat
The last thing we’ll do before placing our tray in the oven
Is to add about 1 to 2 tablespoons of water to the pan
This helps to generate a bit of steam to help the pork stay moist
And it also helps to prevent the drippings from burning and smoking
Earlier, we started preheating our oven at 425° F or 218° C
Now, we’ll be placing the pork into the oven
Taking it out periodically
To lather it again with either our leftover pork marinade
Or 2 tablespoons of honey diluted with about 2 teaspoons of water
Here’s how my dad split up the cooking time
Cook for 15 minutes and lather both sides with the pork marinade
Cook for another 15 minutes and lather both sides with pork marinade again
Cook for 10 minutes and lather both sides with the diluted honey
And finally, we’ll turn the heat up to 450° F
Cook for another 5 minutes
Lather both sides with honey
And let it cool for a few minutes before cutting into it
In total, this was about 50 minutes in the oven
How do the restaurants do it differently?
Restaurants make larger amounts at a time
So they'll use a different method
They'll use a huge 5-gallon bucket of sauce at a time
Enough to use it many times over
So they'll use it differently
The restaurants won't use this combination of sugar, wine, and light soy sauce
They don't use as many ingredients as we do
Which kind tastes better?
I think that we use more ingredients, and better ingredients
How do you make the outside glossy?
Sugar
At the end, they'll use sugar, in syrup
They might not use honey
Restaurants use sugar syrup
At the end, they'll baste it over the surface
That makes it glossy
How do you make it moist?
That depends on the meat
If you use pork butt, what we call mùih táu
As long as you don't cook it for too long
It won't be dry
This is 2 pounds of meat
If it were one pound, would the time be shorter?
The timing is the same
It's the same whether it's one or two pieces of meat
You'd only be using less marinade
For a little more char, baste it with sugar
Then it'll be very glossy
Like the glossy ones you see outside
The restaurants drench it in sugar syrup
This way, they make the char siu heavier
Heavier?
Yes
They put the char siu in a basin of syrup and bathe it
They submerge it in syrup when they scoop it out, the syrup's hardened
It makes it heavier
And more expensive?
Earn more money!
If you take it out like this
That's business
They soak it in a basin of sugar syrup
It absorbs the sugar, and sugar is heavy
Understand?
If we baste it with sugar, it'll be very pretty
It will be glossy
It's honey cha siu
Look
Right?
See, isn't it glossy?
While it's hot, baste it with honey
Flip it over
Isn't it glossy?
I'm hungry
Hungry?
Let's take it out
That's it
Don't cut into it right away
Wait five minutes before cutting it
Let the juices rest first
It's still too hot
This one is ready
Let's cut it for everyone to see
See?
Isn't it nice?
Want a piece?
You eat
This is the nicest piece
Okay
So juicy
You eat one
Isn't it juicy inside?
It's full of juice
It's juicy and not dry, right?
Before we started Made With Lau
I started noticing this specific pattern
Of chicken, fish, and pork always showing up on the dinner table
As well as the prayer table when we bai sun during Chinese New Year
In our video on bak chit gai
My parents also alluded to “sāam sāang”
Which refers to an ancient Chinese practice
Involving a sacrifice of 3 animals to ancestral spirits
Around 3000 years ago during the Shang dynasty
Animals like cattle, sheep, and pigs were often sacrificed
Over time, the sacrifices became less literal
And society eventually gravitated towards
Honoring the “sāam sāang” tradition
Through cooking chicken, fish, and pig dishes
I also wanted to get my mom’s perspective, in general
On why it’s so important to celebrate Chinese New Year
With lots of food on the dinner table
Actually, in Chinese history
Chinese people, because it's a big country with a big population
The country is not rich, right?
Food production is not enough for the whole country of people
So if we have chicken, fish, and pork on the Chinese New Year table
That means expecting in the new year
That we'll have a lot of good food to eat
Chicken means "hóu sai gaai"
The family, economically, financially, expects to be good
Fish symbolizes yearly surplus
You never worry about shortage of anything in life
Pork is also one of the major foods we eat all the time
So pork also symbolizes that we have good food to eat
Is there a saying for pork?
It's just pork
You can make pork, you can make sau yuhk, cha siu
We have roast pork tonight
Siu yuhk is pork
After it's roasted, the pork is so crunchy
It tastes so good
So in the New Year, we have to have chicken, fish and pork
It just symbolizes that we have enough food for the coming year
This is a tradition that my family has followed for as long as I can remember
There are a lot of other traditions associated with Chinese New Year
So be sure to check out the full interview I did with my mom
On what Chinese New Year means to her
And the symbolism behind some of the most common traditions
For me personally, it’s really important to be able to document these traditions
So that when our kids grow up, they understand what they are
And why we do them
Hong Doi, you need to learn about the New Year, okay?
Okay, Hong Doi?
We give children red envelopes
Red envelopes
You want that one, huh?
What do you say?
Thank you
You're welcome
My favorite one
dō jeh, thank you
Tasty
Love you
Time to eat
Food to eat to celebrate the New Year, Hong Doi
The Lau family wishes all our friends
In the new year, good health, good luck
May you have good health and happiness with your family
It's like Lion King
Prosperity, success, and may you achieve all your goals
Cheers
Happy New Year!
Good health to you!
Laugh "ha" "ha" (shrimp)
How's the food?
We wish all our audience and friends
Have good dreams for the New Year, and that they all come true
And good luck in this Year of the Ox
One, two, three
Happy New Year!
Gong Hai Fat Choy! (Happy New Year!)