Skillet Char Siu
- Yield 8 servings
- Prep 10 minutes
- Cook 1 hour 20 minutes
- Total 3 hours 30 minutes
Skillet Char Siu sits in the Pork section of Regbie. The card serves 8 servings. Plan on 3 hours 30 minutes from the first measure to the plate. The amounts and the method are both written on this page.
Ingredients
Yield: 8 servings
- ½ cup plum jam, sweetened with fruit juice (peach and apricot jam also work)
- ¼ cup coconut aminos
- 3 tablespoons tomato paste
- 1 tablespoon almond butter, creamy
- 1 tablespoon honey, skippable
- 1 teaspoon Red Boat fish sauce
- ½ teaspoon Chinese five spice powder
- ½ teaspoon ground ginger
- 3 pounds boneless pork shoulder roast
- 2 teaspoons Diamond Crystal kosher, if using a finer grain salt, only use 1 teaspoon
- 2 scallions, trimmed and thinly sliced (skippable finish)
Method
Make the marinade and cool it to room temperature: add the jam, coconut aminos, tomato paste, almond butter, honey (if you’re not doing a Whole30), fish sauce, Chinese five spice powder, and ground ginger to a small saucepan. Beat the marinade as you heat it to a gently bubble over a medium burner.
Once the sauce is smooth and bubbling, move it to a measuring cup and cool to room temperature. (You can store the marinade in the fridge for up to 4 days and use it when you’re ready to roast the pork.)
Next, prepare the pork. Blot the pork shoulder dry with a paper towel and slice the meat into 2-inch strips of even thickness. The pork strips should be roughly uniform in size. (It’s cool to have fatty pieces of pork because you don’t want want to end up with dry char siu.)
Scatter the kosher salt all over the pork pieces. Set the pork in a large bowl or zippered storage bag and pour all except ⅓ cup of the cooled marinade onto the pork. Lid the reserved marinade and store in the fridge.
Use your hands to coat the marinade all over the pork strips. Lid the bowl with a silicone lid or plastic wrap and store in the fridge for 2 to 24 hours.
When you’re ready to roast the pork, Heat the oven to 350°F with the rack in the middle position. Set the pork on an oven-safe wire rack in a rimmed baking sheet.
Bake the pork for 30 minutes, flipping the pork pieces at the halfway point (15 minutes).
Lift the pork from the oven and increase the oven temperature to 400°F.
Coat half of the reserved marinade on the top of the pork pieces. Tip enough water into the bottom of the pan so that you have a thin layer coating the bottom. The water will keep the drippings from burning while the pork cooks.
Bake the pork for 25 minutes, and then flip the pieces over and brush on the remaining marinade. Bake for an additional 20 to 30 minutes or until the pork is slightly charred on the edges.
Rest the pork for 10 minutes, and then slice against the grain into chompable slices. Lay out the pork on a serving dish and finish with sliced scallions, and serve! Leftovers can be kept in the fridge for up to 4 days or frozen for 4 months.
