I cook have this dish about once a week. It is not labour intensive at all and you cannot buy an identical meal from a restaurant or takeaway in Manchester. For the Char Siu, I actually make it from scratch as I do not like the Hong Kong style red Char Siu you get from restaurants in the UK. I usually attempt to make the type of sweet dark Char Siu, like the ones I get back in Malaysia.
The marinade consists of Hoi Sin sauce, lemon juice 5 spice powder, salt, dark soy sauce and a large amount of honey to make it sweet.
I use shoulder steaks as they are nicely marbled with adequate but not too much fat. The thickness of the steak is VERY important as it will determine how dry or succulent your result is. The thickness of the steak will depend on how hot the grill is. I cook them on high heat, turning them over frequently until the outside is slightly charred but the inside is just cooked, but not overcooked.
During the cooking process, I scoop up the juice as a base for my sauce.
I simply mix it with sugar, water and soy sauce for a nice sweet sauce for the meat and rice.
And finally, the Char Siu! As with all roast / grilled meat, you should not cut it immediately or all the juice will leak out leaving it dry. Let it cool and the juice absorbed back evenly into the meat first (about 30 mins).
As for the rice, obviously I am unable to make it from scratch as I have no chicken in my meal to make the stock. So I take the simple solution and use the best readymade cooking sauce I can find. This sauce has a strong garlic taste, so I use a lot less than the recommeded amount.
I only need a heaped teaspoonful for 3 medium servings of rice.
I add some salt to taste, but most importantly, half a blade of pandan (screwpine) leaf, to give it that authentic fragrant. I can buy this easily in Manchester - about 60p for a dozen blades.
And here is the final result - Hainan Chicken Rice with Char Siu!
In future, I will write about how I make Hainan Chicken Rice from scratch, when I make a poached chicken (pak cham kei).
5 comments:
Wait !! where is the chicken?? you should called this Char Siu rice..haha..Well done :)
it only shows how lucky we are..just step outside the house and we can buy a pack..saves the time we have to make this..
wow... u really put in a lot of effort to make this happen, looks yummy ~ ^_^
thx for droppin by my blog ya! woah u know how to make char siu! turn to mii, i don think i can make it... mayb burnt char siu! =) good job!
It really is not too much effort. The steaks are cut by the butcher and it takes 2 mins to make the sauce.
ekeng:
the chicken will be in a future blog.. promise! :)
joe:
in Manchester, we can buy char siu just as easily, but Hong Kong style cannot compare to Malaysian! :)
Post a Comment