Chinese BBQ Pork (Best and Authentic Recipe!) - Rasa Malaysia (2024)

FAQs

What makes Chinese BBQ pork pink? ›

4. Red food colouring – to make the pork red, like you get at the Chinese barbecue shop. This is optional. Authentic Char Siu uses red bean curd for colouring and a touch of flavour – it can be found at Asian stores, use about 2 tbsp of the liquid and no red food colouring.

The red color of char siu traditionally comes from red fermented bean curd, or lam yuh. It doesn't give a very bright, vibrant red, but more of a natural redwood-looking hue. To get a very vibrant red color, most Chinese BBQ stalls add red food coloring.

Unlike American-style barbecue sauces, traditional Chinese barbecue sauce doesn't contain tomatoes. Hoisin sauce, soy sauce, black bean paste, and Chinese five-spice powder are what bring the flavor.

Char siu is barbecued roast pork, whereas siu yuk is roasted crispy pork belly. Not only do they use different parts of the pig — my dad likes to use pork butt for char siu and pork belly for siu yuk — but they're also prepared differently and have varying flavor profiles and textures.

Soy sauce (usually a mix of light and dark soy sauce), fermented bean paste, red fermented tofu or rock sugar is commonly used to both flavor and impart a reddish brown hue to the items being cooked. Food coloring is sometimes added for a more intense red coloration.

Still, there's a fairly common base set of ingredients including hoisin, honey, soy sauce, sherry, and Chinese five spice powder that imparts the ubiquitous flavor and glossy sheen to Char Siu.

Hoisin sauce

The original sauce uses fermented soybean paste which is quite tricky to find. I cannot always find it, so instead, I use hoisin sauce which is more widely available. Hoisin sauce adds a kick of umami and a subtle tanginess. You can use store-bought or follow my recipe to make your own hoisin sauce.

Unlike char siu, which is made by painting slices of pork shoulder with a thick, sweet marinade and roasting it, Japanese chashu is a simmered dish made with pork belly.

Soy Sauce (Regular/light) (酱油，Jiàngyóu)

Soy sauce (jiàng yóu, 酱油), the most common of Chinese sauces, sounds simple, and for the most part, it is. However, there are many types, each unique to different Asian cuisines (Chinese, Japanese, Thai, etc.).

Hoisin (sometimes called Chinese barbecue sauce) is used to marinate meat, add some zest to stir-fry dishes, or make a dipping sauce (mmm… dumplings).

What makes char siu pork pink? ›

Ingredients in marinades for cha siu are similar to those found in China (honey, five-spice, wine, soy, hoisin, etc.), except that red food colouring is often used in place of the red bean curd for convenience.

In Japanese, chashu means simmered or braised pork.

No they are not the same. Hoisin sauce is made from fermented soybeans mixed with garlic, chilli, sesame, Chinese spices and vinegar. Char siu sauce is a condiment made from hoisin sauce, sugar, Chinese five spice powder, Chinese cooking wine, soy sauce, garlic and often also food colouring.

If fresh pork has reached 145°F (62.8 °C) throughout, even though it may still be pink in the center, it should be safe. The pink color can be due to the cooking method or added ingredients.

The persistent pink color is principally related to high pH conditions that stabilize myoglobin to heat (Mendenhall 1989; Trout 1989). Consequently, the pigment that has not been fully denatured during cooking will appear pink, and when exposed to air, it can become brighter pink due to the formation of oxymyoglobin.

Occurrence. The pinkish color in meat is typically due to the presence of a compound called myoglobin.

The characteristic red hue of char siu comes from red food coloring, which you can add to the marinade if you'd like, but I prefer to go au natural. It's plenty pretty on its own. Hoisin sauce—a fermented soy bean-based sweet and savory barbecue sauce—is the primary flavoring agent in the marinade.