I had this “cha siew” consecutively for 3 weeks in order to get the correct taste !! For the first week, I attempted it using pork belly with store bought char siu sauce and using a wholly oven baked method. The char siu sauce wasn’t to my liking though and the pork belly comprises of too much fats. The 2nd week, I attempted with pork shoulder, concoct my own char siu sauce and cook it first before finishing it off in the oven. The pork shoulder was kind of dry and the sauce wasn’t sweet enough.
Finally, in the week that follows, I recreate the same using fresh pork collar (五花肉 ) ordered from PurelyFresh which was quite the best I had so far, comprises of enough fats but wasn’t that fattening and did not turn out to be too dry either. Also, the sauce that was re-created was much much better and using the same method as the 2nd week, was much satisfactory than the last 2 attempts.
And with these “char siew”, you can enjoy your own wanton noodles at home now too !
If you are unable to finish all the char siew in one meal, you can always set them aside and made them into char siew rice for the next !
- 500g pork collar （五花肉）
- 2-3 bunches of mee kia
- 10 pcs of wantons (recipe can be found here)
- some cai xin vegetables
- some spring onion, diced
- 1 tbsp light soya sauce
- 2 tbsp sweet soya sauce (kecap manis)
- 1 tbsp shaoxing wine
- 100g sugar
- 1 tbsp honey
- 50g dried anchovies
- 3 tbsp yellow beans （黄豆）, soaked overnight in water
- 1L water
- 1½ tsp pork lard oil
- 1 tsp sweet soya sauce (kecap manis)
- 1 tsp oyster sauce
- 1 tsp sambal chilli
- dash of sesame oil
Marinade the pork collar with the marinade ingredients and leave it overnight in the fridge. Heat up a wok or deep frying pan and add the pork collar with all the sauce into it. Turn it over occasionally to ensure every parts of the pork collar is infused with the sauce.
In another pot, boil the water together with the dried anchovies (in a soup stock bag) and yellow beans for 15 minutes.
Going back to the char siew, after the sauce starts to boil and thickens slightly, remove from heat.
Place the char siew together with remaining sauce in a baking tin.
Grill the char siew in the oven for 180 degrees C for 15 minutes in the middle rack. (Depending on the thickness of your meat, as mine was relatively thick, hence I baked it longer in the oven.)
Remove from oven, flip the pork collar over to the other side and bake for a further 15 minutes.
When the char siew is done, remove and cut into thin slices. Top/serve the char siew with the remaining sauce.
Going back to the soup, after 15 minutes, remove the dried anchovies stock bag from the soup, but reserving the yellow beans in the soup.
Add the wantons into the soup. The wantons are cooked after they float to the surface of the soup.
In another wok, heat up some water and blanch the mee kia noodles in it.
Drain the noodles and rinsed them briefly over tap water.
Combine all the ingredients for the noodles sauce in a plate. Add the mee kia noodles and mix them well with the sauce.
At the same time, blanch the cai xin vegetables in a pot of boiling water with 1 tsp of cooking oil (This is to give the vegetables some shine.). Drain well.
Serve the noodles with the char siew, wantons, vegetables together with the wanton soup. Garnish the wanton soup with some diced spring onion.
