keiraku's char siu

The other day on tv, there was a chinese restaurant that shared their char siu recipe.

I'm always interested in finding new recipes that taste like "home". This char siu recipe comes really close.

Keiraku's Char Siu

200 grams pork belly block
1 tablespoon shoyu (soy sauce)
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons sugar
1 tablespoon sake (rice wine)
1/2 teaspoon 5 spice (powder)

Put everything in a ziploc bag and marinate overnight.

Bake at 180C (350F) for 15 minutes. Flip and bake for another 15 minutes.

NOTES: The original recipe doesn't say to put everything into a ziploc bag, but it was the easiest way to marinate something and massage/flip it every time I opened the refrig.

After baking it for 30 minutes, the clear pork fat that was in the oven was actually glisteningly beautiful!

I let the meat rest for 5 minutes and I sliced it. It wasn't cooked, so I sliced everything and put it back into the oven for another 5 minutes.

Tastewise, it is close to the Cantonese style char siu that I grew up with. I like that it doesn't use all that red food coloring that we see in Hawaii.

I'm freezing most of this and will use it in fried rice. I'm making this again.