I’m a huge lover of char siew and ever since I came across this particular homemade char siew recipe, found HERE, I could not stop thinking about making it on my own.
But erm, the prospect of ruining my one and only non-stick pan really pulled on the inertia for this endeavour. I considered buying a wok for this but then again, I’m supposed to season it. I can’t reliably season my food and I’ve to season a wok? I’m really bad at cooking, FYI.
And then my daddy dearest suggested to me, instead of searing it in the pan, transfer it to the oven. Wow! How ingenious!
And yes, that’s my main hack: If you do not wish to burn your wok, just follow the recipe until the searing part, then move it to the oven. The maillard reaction occurs up to 165°C so, I decided to do 5 minutes at 200°C cos I really want the caramelized and charred bits. Mmmm.
The pan was cleaned up as quickly as Lauren’s poopy behind, no damage or tough scrubbing required! Yippie! And since I wrapped up the oven plate with aluminium foil, I didn’t have to kill myself scrubbing the burnt bits. Just throw the foil away!
So how did it turn out? I’d say the recipe is solid and very easy to follow (if I can cook, you can too, really!). It tastes really good, only thing is, I should have cooked it in the pan much longer for that melt in mouth goodness. I took it out around 35 minutes because I cooked about 1/4 of the recipe and the sauce was drying up. So my first attempt ended up with the meat not tender enough. Sigh! And I should get nicer pork belly from the wet market. More fats = more yummmmz! I’m very eager to try this out again! Ok no more whining, peektures*! *taken with iPhone 6, loving it!
Leave a reply