Yeah. I was REALLY hoping this was going to turn out well. I love Char Siu Bao and can't remember the last time I had it out at a Chinese restaurant. If you're unaware, CSB is really good Chinese barbequed pork (Char Siu) tucked into a delicious, yeasty baked* bun (Bau). Yes - so good, it deserves to be incorrectly capitalized.
Before I go any further, I'd love to hear from my cousins in Beijing about how this recipe is done in China (maybe it isn't?) and let them have a good laugh at me for putting ketchup in it. I should also mention that Anya's Chinese nickname is Bao-zi, and I believe she's as cute, if not cuter, than a pork filled bun.
Anyway, I made the Char Siu portion with a nice chunk of pork shoulder with hoisin sauce, brown sugar, soy sauce, honey, ketchup and assorted other things. It came out great. All the recipes I've seen have these basic ingredients with some added and removed. The hoisin sauce is the most important part as far as I can tell.
So I had some great pork and that's where the problems started. I didn't really plan ahead so well for the Bau portion. It's hard to pull off something that needs to rise for a few hours on a weekday, especially when it's something you want to eat right when it's ready. But there was that plate of pork sitting in the fridge.
A brilliant idea struck. I had been wanting to make arepas at some point - they had been hailed as a wonderful South American treat - hot corn cakes stuffed with all sorts of stuff. The corn cakes promised to come together quickly, cook within 30 minutes, and hey, the "stuffed with all sorts of stuff" seemed like it was just begging for some Char Siu.
The arepas sounded very straightforward (corn flour, salt, water, mix, knead, pan fry, bake, stuff, eat), so I'm not sure if I messed it up, or if my expectations were way too high.
Hockey pucks.
Bland, pale hockey pucks.
I'm planning on dropping them off at the rod and gun club that Molly and I pass every Saturday morning. They are always skeet shooting and the clay pigeons will be jealous of these arepas.
Defeated and bao-less, the cooked pork ended up with some rice and snow peas on the side, and that was really good. Just not the same. You can find plenty of Bao recipes out there (it's a just a slighty sweetened, slightly enriched dough) and you can finish off what I couldn't...
Char Siu, Hold the Bao
Cut into strips or slabs, about 1/2 inch thick:
3 LB pork shoulderMix all together:
3 TB hoisin sauce
1/3 C soy sauce
1/2 tsp chinese five spice
1 TB brown sugar
1 clove garlic, minced
1 TB ketchupAdd the pork slabs to the marinade, get them all into a big plastic bag and marinate overnight in the fridge. When ready to cook, preheat oven to 300. Reserve the marinade and lay the pork out on a wire rack in a sheet pan with some water in it. You can line the sheet pan with foil if you don't want your next batch of oatmeal cookies to taste like charred pork**. Cook for about an hour, until the pork is cooked and mostly tender, but still chewy. While it's cooking, make the glaze.
Mix:
A few spoons of the leftover marinade (to taste), boiled for a minute
About 1/4 C honey
About 1/4 C ketchupWhen the pork is ready, take it out, turn on the broiler and take turns glazing/broiling each side until they are both sticky and crispy. Try not to eat it all before it ends up in the bao.
* There is a steamed version as well, but I like the baked.
** "Ah! You put pork on my cookie rack!" said Tina.












