Yakibuta, or Japanese-style Chinese Roast Pork (char siu)

Ingredients

1 kg/ 2 lbs or more pork roast. It should not be too fatty, but should not be totally lean or it may be rather dry.

Soy sauce

1 fat piece of ginger

1 star anise

3-4 garlic cloves

Sugar

Water

Directions

If you have a big piece of pork, cut it into about 500g (1 pound) pieces. Roughly chop the ginger - you can leave the skin on - and bash the garlic to crush a bit.

Put the pork pieces in a sturdy plastic bag. You may want to double-bag it. Put in the pork, ginger, star anise and garlic, and fill with enough soy sauce to cover the pork. Seal the bag well and marinate in the refrigerator overnight. Turn the meat several times if you can so that the marinade penetrates evenly.

Preheat the oven to 140° C / 280° F. Empty out the contents of the bag into a baking dish. Add a bit of water so that the meat is sitting in about 1cm of liquid. Sprinkle the meat with sugar, and bake for about 2 1/2 - 3 hours, turning the meat every 20-30 minutes. If you want it even sweeter, sprinkle more sugar on the meat periodically. At the end, the liquid will be almost gone and syrupy, and you will have dark amber colored pieces of pork. Let cool and slice thin, cube, etc. You can use cubes in fried rice, or in the steamed buns of course, and any number of things. Sliced thin it makes a great salad. It's also a rather unusual tasting sandwich meat.

It is quite worthwhile to make this in some quantity, since the cooking takes so long, and to freeze in portions for later use.

Notes

Originally from: https://www.justhungry.com/2004/04/steamed_buns_wi.html