Char Siu Sauce Like American barbecue sauces, its composition can vary, but will typically involve a mixture of hoisin sauce, honey or sweetener, and Chinese five spice powder.
? How to Make Char Siu Sauce
I do not recommend using maple syrup as the flavor would be overpowering. If not vegan, simply use neutral liquid honey. Hoisin sauce - For that sweet, salty, and tangy flavor.
soy sauce: both dark and light soy sauce will do the job, but choose light soy sauce for the slightly less salty Chinese BBQ Sauce. dark brown sugar: it adds the molasses-like flavour to the Char Siu Sauce, but if you've run out, you can substitute it with other types of sugar or even honey.
Still, there's a fairly common base set of ingredients including hoisin, honey, soy sauce, sherry, Chinese five spice powder that imparts the ubiquitous flavor and glossy sheen to Char Siu.
Hoisin sauce does taste a bit like an American-style barbecue sauce, but much saltier, richer, less sweet, and has a flavor all its own. The fermented soybeans add the savory umami element that some other sauces use fish or meat to achieve.
Even though they look identical, soy and hoisin are not the same. Besides soybeans, hoisin is formulated with garlic, sesame oil, chilies, vinegar, and some sweetener for good measure. For lovers of Korean barbecue, you'll be pleased to know that hoisin is considered the Chinese equivalent.
Char siu (叉烧) is a type of Cantonese roast meat. Char siu (or slightly different spelling, cha siu) is its Cantonese name, but in Mandarin, it is known as cha shao.
Char siu originally comes from Cantonese cuisine, and the word chā sīu 叉烧 literally means “fork roasted,” which is a nod to the traditional cooking method of skewering seasoned pork with long forks, and placing them in an oven or over a fire.
Japanese have adapted the famous Chinese barbecued pork called Char Siu (叉燒) as chāshū (チャーシュー). Unlike the Chinese version which requires roasting over high heat, we prepare the meat by rolling it into a log and then braising it over low heat in a sauce seasoned with soy sauce, sake, and sugar.
Hoisin Sauce Ingredients
Hoisin is made with sugar, water, soybeans, salt, sweet potato, sesame seeds, cornstarch, garlic, wheat flour, chili pepper and spices.
You can use hoisin sauce in place of oyster sauce. Substitute a tablespoon for every tablespoon of oyster sauce called for in the recipe and add an extra teaspoon of sugar, if desired to mimic the flavor. Hoisin sauce has a rich, distinctly sweet, and salty flavor with notes of garlic, soybean, vinegar and spices.
Char Siu Ingredients
Soy sauce, honey, ketchup, and brown sugar create the base of the luscious marinade, while hoisin sauce and red bean curd add depth. Juicy pork tenderloin is the main event of this 5-star recipe.
hoisin sauce, also called Peking sauce, commercially prepared, thick reddish-brown sauce used in Chinese cuisine both as an ingredient in cooking and as a table condiment.
Hoisin sauce is itself a stir-fry sauce, but it can also be used to round out the sweetness and tanginess of a homemade sauce. It is made from a mixture of fermented soybeans, garlic, sesame oil, vinegar, and a hint of chili, as well as a very obvious sweet punch from the addition of sugar or honey.
While Asian cookbooks include many hoisin recipes, you can prepare many other types of food with hoisin sauce, too. You can substitute it in any dish you might use barbecue sauce. Try hoisin sauce with these meals: Stir fry: Add a tablespoon or two of hoisin sauce to any stir fry and serve over rice.
Cantonese char-siu is roasted after marinating in a sweet sauce with five spice powder and often red food dye. By contrast, Japanese chashu is braised low and slow in a sweet and salty mixture, often with aromatics like ginger and garlic, but without five spice powder or food dye.
Contains a high amount of risky components that may include saturated fat, cholesterol, sodium and sugars (0.07%/oz). Good source of proteins (82% of DV/100g). Relatively high in saturated fat (45% of DV/100g).
Why is Char Siu pork pink? This pork dish gets it color from a little red food coloring. An authentic Char Siu recipe is made with fermented red bean curds, which don't have a lot of flavor but add color to the meat. It's easy to make without red bean curds; just add red food coloring for the same effect.
Translated as “fork roasted”, pork is slathered with the classic sauce and then roasted in the oven or over a fire. It's popular throughout China, Southwest Asia and Japan. The crowning feature of char siu pork is its barbecue sauce. Sticky, sweet and salty with deep umami undertones, its flavors are bold and vibrant.
Meaning: to laugh in response to something. In Cantonese, siu means “to laugh”, while the number “4” has the same pronunciation as the Cantonese word for “die”. Siu-say is a commonly spoken phrase, and “siu4” is its romanised form for texting or social media.
What to serve with char siu pork? It can be served with many side dishes but in Asian cuisine, a simple and great way to enjoy this is with white rice, leafy greens like bok choy. I also enjoy having my char siu in soup noodles or even lo mein!
Hoisin Sauce
It has a similar dark color and slightly thicker consistency than teriyaki sauce, and shares the same salty flavor as teriyaki sauce. That said, hoisin sauce is way less sweet compared to teriyaki sauce, and has more of a unique flavor.
The word hoisin is derived from the Chinese words for "seafood" (simplified Chinese: 海鲜; traditional Chinese: 海鮮; Cantonese Yale: hói sīn; pinyin: hǎixiān), although the sauce does not contain any seafood ingredients and is not commonly consumed with seafood.
They are very different in taste. Oyster sauce is made from oyster extract, whereas the key ingredient in hoisin sauce is fermented soybean paste. Hoisin sauce is sweet with a fragrance of warm, toasted spices, whereas oyster sauce is salty with an ocean-like flavour.