You would have thought I was after the secret recipe for Coca-Cola! Everywhere I turned, reluctant cooks zipped their lips. All I wanted was a recipe for char siu, or Chinese barbecue sauce. But what I thought would be a simple task turned monumental.
Although many people claimed to make the best char siu, they declined to share. Too many said, "It’s a family secret." Or worse: "My popo (grandmother) made the best char siu, but now no one makes it." Still, they keep the recipe secret.
In Hawaii, char sui is one of our favorite preparations for marinated meat. Classic char siu includes something sweet (sugar, brown sugar or hoisin sauce), something salty (soy sauce or salt), something alcoholic and, always, five-spice powder. Chinese five spice is a mixture usually made of cloves, cinnamon, fennel, star anise and pepper (sometimes Szechuan peppercorns or ginger).
A Chinatown market owner told me, "Who makes homemade char siu sauce nowadays? Just buy the mix and marinate whatever meat you like. More easy."
As a tribute to its popularity, even Foodland sells marinated char siu chicken and pork ready to cook.
Sauces, from brands such as Lee Kum Kee, Noh and Lum’s, are easy to find. But some people are sensitive to monosodium glutamate or prefer no food coloring and, in that case, would choose to mix their own marinade.
The variables of char siu include:
>> Choice of protein
>> Level of sweetness
>> Cooking in oven or grill
>> Red coloring or not (In the Chinese culture, red is a sign of good luck.)
I had all but given up hope when family friend Priscilla Lau agreed to share her knowledge. Lau was a super home cook who served Sunday dinner for 12 to 20 family and friends for 40 years, until she moved into a retirement community.
"She made dinner effortlessly and everything was delicious," said daughter Corianne Lau.
In her Mahimahi Street home in Niu Valley, she would cook weekly for sons Chris and Colin, daughters Corianne and Caryn, and her grandchildren — at least six dishes and always a dessert.
The former First Hawaiian Bank employee says her char siu recipe is similar to the Lum’s brand of bottled sauce.
LAU CLAN CHAR SIU
8 to 10 pounds pork shoulder, pork butt or baby back pork spareribs
(8 pounds boneless, 10 pounds bone-in)
>> Marinade:
1 (16-ounce) box dark brown sugar
3 tablespoons rock salt
1 teaspoon Chinese five-spice powder
1 thumb-size piece ginger, peeled and grated
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup dry sherry (substitute with any type of liquor)
1 teaspoon red coloring (or 1/4 teaspoon Chinese red color paste)
1-1/2 tablespoons honey
Prepare meat: For pork shoulder or butt, cut into pieces about 3 by 6 inches, slicing along grain. Remove fat. If using ribs, peel off rib silver skin. Wash ribs.
Mix marinade ingredients until sugar, salt, red paste and honey are dissolved. Pour over pork and marinate in refrigerator overnight or up to two nights.
If using grill, cook meat on low.
For oven, place pork on clean, oiled oven rack. Under the meat, place large pan with at least 1 inch of water. Bake at 300 degrees.
At 30 minutes, turn meat. After 1 hour test for doneness by cutting pork. Ribs are done when meat easily pulls away from bone. For a caramelized, slightly charred finish, broil for last 5 minutes. Cool 10 minutes and slice. Serves 10.
Approximate nutritional information, (based on 8 pounds boneless shoulder): 650 calories, 27 g fat, 10 g saturated fat, 175 mg cholesterol, greater than 2,000 mg sodium, 48 g carbohydrate, no fiber, 47 g sugar, 49 g protein
P. Lau Lessons
Priscilla Lau’s grandchildren created a book of her recipes that her late husband, Herky, jokingly titled “Cooking the P. Lau Way,” pilau being the Hawaiian word for stinky. Her char siu tips:
>> Cook char siu directly on oven racks with a pan filled with water below. The water creates moisture that lends tenderness and makes cleanup easier.
>> Grated ginger provides much more flavor than chunks.
>> When slicing finished char siu, cut against the grain so that the meat is more tender.
>> Remember there is a lot of sugar in char siu marinade, so keep temperatures moderate; high temperatures will cause burning.
>> Cool liquid in pan and discard in a milk carton or other container. Do not pour it down the sink, as the fat could clog your drain after it solidifies.
Hong Kong version favors pork belly
All over the world, Chinese-themed restaurants include char siu on the menu. Many of the servings are not as sweet or as red as the offerings in Hawaii. In Hong Kong, I was served thin slices of char siu that melted in my mouth. Surprise: They used the more expensive and fattier pork belly. The thin morsels were coated with honey, slightly brown, black tinged on top — but with no trace of artificial red coloring. My guess is that the dark soy sauce and hoisin turn it that brownish-red hue. The best belly cut has five layers of fat alternating with meat, and more fat always means more flavor and tenderness. Here is a recipe that duplicates this style of Hong Kong char siu.
Char Siu Pork Belly
1 pound pork belly, large piece if possible, but strips are OK
>> Marinade:
2 tablespoons Chinese rice wine or dry sherry
2 tablespoons Chinese dark soy sauce or regular soy sauce
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons hoisin sauce
1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon Chinese five-spice powder
Cilantro, for garnish (optional)
Wash pork. Cut off skin; cut meat into 1-1/2-inch strips. Mix marinade ingredients, pour over meat and marinate overnight in refrigerator.
Heat oven to 325 degrees. Lift pork pieces and let marinade drip off. Place on baking rack over pan of water. Brush with honey. Roast about
45 minutes. Halfway, turn meat over and brush again with honey.
Test for doneness. If not brown enough, broil on high a few minutes. Cool at least 10 minutes. Cut into strips. Garnish with cilantro if using. Serves 4.
Approximate nutritional information, per serving: 650 calories, 60 g fat, 22 g saturated fat, 80 mg cholesterol, 700 mg sodium, 12 g carbohydrate, 0 g fiber, 9 g sugar, 12 g protein
Lum’s + beef = ono
Lum’s Meat Center on Winam Avenue in Kapahulu was famous for its Char Siu Pork Ribs. In 1981 Peter Kam, owner of First Commercial Kitchen, bought the char siu recipe from the Lum family for $2,000. Since then he has tweaked the recipe to keep the taste while making it commercially viable, and says it is the highest-grossing product per square foot of shelf space in the long list of items he produces.
“It’s an outstanding product,” Kam says. “Other tastes you get tired of, but char siu has a universal appeal, you can keep eating it forever.”
Kam and Gordon Lum, of the Lum sauce family, declined to give a recipe for the popular sauce, but both endorse their commercial char siu sauce with beef short ribs.
Lum says that his father always washed the beef before marinating to remove bone chips. You may also want to cut cross-hatches in the meat, as some Korean restaurants do, so the marinade better penetrates. Barbecue on a grill over lower heat.
I oven-roasted the short ribs for 25 minutes in a 350-degree oven and turned them over halfway through. The taste was delicious and a nice alternative to pork char siu.
Lynette Lo Tom is writing a cookbook about Chinese cooking in Hawaii, set for release next year. She hopes to discover more about her family’s culinary heritage, including her great-grandfather’s restaurant near Chinatown.
