Grilled Pork Belly with Chinese Barbeque Coffee Char Siu Sauce Marinated and Glazed
Grilled pork belly marinated with coffee char siu sauce recipe is a fushion of chinese char siu barbeque sauce and sticky honey coffee glaze sauce. Char siu (Chinese: 叉燒 caa siu, literally means “fork-roast”. Char siu also known as chasu, cha siu, cha shao, char siew, babi panggang merah is a popular Cantonese cuisine that marinated pork meat with aromatic reddish sweet seasoning then grilled until throughly cooked. Char siu pork is one of the components of siu mei or roasted meat combo that used to be served in Cantonese restaurant. The common halal version of char siu usially using chicken, duck or beef brisket. There’s so many ready to use char siu sauce in a bottle like Lee Kum Kee brand, you can use it if you don’t to mush effort to made it from scratch, use about 8 tbsp instant char siu sauce and mix it with about 1/4 cup coffee essence for this recipe.
This honey and coffee glazed barbequed pork belly is got a red shinny sweet and sticky glazed from the caramelized honey within the sauce, bursting fragrance and aromatic flavour from the civet coffee essence and five spice powder. The dish not that special without fruity and tangy sensation from the civet coffee essence. Beside giving extra ummami flavour and aromas, the coffee essence infact act as tenderizer. the acid also naturally break the protein bond within the meat when you using it to marinade the meat before put it in the griller. Using coffee with your barbeque sauce is quite tricky, too much of it would made your barbeque sauce taste bitter while using less than needed would not given any benefits into it, so use it wisely, 2-4 tbsp for 1 kg of meat is works with my taste buds.
Basically, i just mix a reddish sweet char siu sauce with brewed dark civet coffee essence and using it to marinade the pork belly ovenight before cooking it. I’m using honey, five-spice powder, light and dark soy sauce, hoisin sauce, chinese rice wine and angkak a.k.a yeast rice or red fermented recipe for giving the natural red color. I’m using angkak or red yest rice for many kind of recipe mostly to coloring roast such as my Homemade Roasted Peking Duck Recipe with Crispy Crackling Skin and Chinese Style Roasted Squab or Pigeon. You can purchased the angkak a.k.a red yeast in any chinese groceries or medicine shop nearby your place. The starch within the red yeast rice made your marinade thicken once you cooked it and you didn’t need to add ony of starch to adjust the consistence of your sauce. I’m using 3 tbsp of wild Indonesian civet coffee that brewed with 1 cup of hot water than simmerred until reduced quarter it’s originally volume.
Making this chinese style char siu and coffee marinated pork belly is so easy. First you choose the meaty layered pork belly from the butcher, pork butt or even baby back ribs will be good too if you want your char siu pork less fatty. Cut the pork belly into 5 cm long with 1- 1.5 inch thickness. The pork belly then marinated overnight in the fridge with the brewed coffee essence and homemade char siu sauce . I also forked the pork belly meat to made ths marinade penetrated even better inside the meat. Firstly in the morning, i put the marinated pork belly in non sticky pan and bring it all to slowly boil and cover it with lid. Let the pork belly stewed in the civet coffee and char siu sauce for about 10-15 minutes. You may look the marinate looks more red and the sauce consistency is thicken. Right after the pork belly is cool enough to handle, pierced the pork belly with two bamboo skewer within the pork belly to made it easier to handle or flipped around on the griller.
Chinese roast pork used to eaten with carbs, whether inside a steamed bun or mantau/cha siu bao, homemade soft chinese pancakes,with noodles/cha siu mein, or with steaming hot rice/cha siu fan. I preferto served my coffee char siu pork belly inside a homemade deep fried mantou buns and add some jullienned greens veggies like carrot, scallion, and mung bean sprout and local aromatic herbs called daun kenikir. To enhanced the flavour, nothing better than chopped birds eye chilles over it.
This coffee glazed grilled pork isn’t special if i didn’t use genuin wild Indonesian civet coffee that i brought from my hometown, Muara Dua, South Sumatra Province. Civet coffee or locally known as kopi luwak is a coffee have been eaten, digested and defecated by the Asian palm civet (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus). Sounds icky, but wait until you taste it and know that it’s got a title the most expensive coffee in the world with more than 400 USD/kg price tag. Genuin Indonesian wild civet coffee is real when it’s collected from wild civet droppping. If you found Indonesian civet coffee that tagged less than 200 USD per kilo , it must be civet coffee comes from cruelty farm raised and batterry caged civet that feed with cofee beans. The local civet coffee hunter told me that the unsuffecient ammount of supply with fluctuative stock while the demand is always high rockets the wild civets coffee price tag. Local wild civet cofee hunter rewarded with 30-40 USD/kg and then local collector used to sold it to international trader for at least 200-400 USD/kg after washed from the dirt and shit, hulled and then sun drained it. The biggest toke or local civet coffee colletor in my hometown can fullfilling the minimum 100 kg quota for about 3-6 months depending on the season.
Then why Indonesian wild civet coffee is so special ? The wild civet eats the best qualities and the ripest coffee berries, then the fleshy pulp digested while the fermentation did the magic to the coffee bean; proteolytic enzymes seep into the beans, break some protein chains and shorter peptides and more free amino acids and made the coffee taste even better. Luckily, my father’s friend is a genuin wild civet coffee trader is too kind to take me with his civet cofee hunter crews to foraging the prescious poops . Hopefully, i’m gonna post about it as soon as possible. The hillarious and life time experiments climbing up hill then down hill for several times in traditional coffee plantation looking for a prescious poop. Right before i’m gonna said good bye to the crews, the leader of the civet coffee hunter was given me about 1 kg of our wild civet coffee for free (HALLELUYA!!! HALLELUYA!!! HALLELUYA!!! themed song playing). Eversince i’m to scared to processed it by myself, i ask the local coffee store to washed, hulled and then roast it for me. You won’t believe how good it’s smells while the coffee shops employee roast the beans in a traditional rotisserie metal tong that filled with some beach sand and then rotate it over mangoo wood flames.
In Indonesia, we used to called char siu as babi panggang merah literrary grilled pork with red spice/reddish pork roast simply because the pork roast got red color. Others called it sate babi manis or skewerred pork with sweet barbeque seasoning. Among batakness descent, we used simplified char siu as babi panggang cina or chinese style roasted pork, it’s a common topping for bakmi Pematang Siantar; a curled tiny noodle served from Pematang Siantar region in North Sumatra Province. Otherwise, in chinese Indonesian community, char siu used to be served over nasi campur or hainamese-style mixed rice
Grilled Pork Belly with Chinese Coffee and CHar Siu Sauce Marinated and Glazed Recipe:
- 1 kg pork belly, cut 3 inches long and 1 inch thick
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1 cup water for stewing the pork belly
- 3 tbsp wild civet coffee powder, brewed with 1 cup hot water then simmer until thicken into quarter , strained with fine sieve, set aside
- 2 tbsp honey or maltose
- 1 tbsp five spice powder
- 2 tbsp angkak or powderred chinese red yeast rice,
- 2 tbsp light soy sauce
- 4 tbsp chinese cooking wine
- 1 tsp dark soy sauce
- 2 tbsp hoisin sauce*optional
- 2 tbsp oyster sauce*optional
- 1 whole star anise*optional
- ½tbsp salt
- 1 tbsp garlic powder
How to Made Grilled Pork Belly with Chinese Coffee and CHar Siu Sauce Marinated and Glazed Recipe
- Mix all the coffee char siu barbeque sauce in a glass bowl
- Slice the pork belly along the grain to 1 inch thick slices and mix it well with the charsiu coffee marinade sauce
- Cover the mixture with cling wrap and let it marinade overnight in the fridge
- Firstly in the morning, put the cofee marinated pork belly in a non stick pan, add 1 cup water and bring it to slowly boil, cover it with lid and turning once after 5 minutes then continue to stewed it until all liquid completely evaporated, set aside.
- Once the pork belly is cool enough to handle, put the pork belly in two wooden skewer
- Put the skewered coffee char siu sauce pork belly over medium low heat griller and flip it several times until it throughly cooked and the fat it’s rendered and the meat is still moist
- Served the coffee char siu barbequed pork belly with steaming hot rice or chinese mantou buns with jullienned veggies.