Char Siu Marinade Recipe

First off...I'm not exactly sure how to make char siu marinade or if there's a more correct way etc. of doing it. However, I have used a packet char siu marinade mix before and thus tried to recreate the mix with the ingredients that it said were in it along with a few additional things and such. Anywhooo... I made this recipe and it came out fairly decent so, I used it to marinade some chopped up Spam Lite for 30 minutes. If you're unsure about adding the red food coloring in this than you don't have to but it is generally the traditional color of the marinade as the meat should turn red in color. My Chinese friend and I always say or think something along the lines of "if it isn't red, than it isn't good char siu", haha.

1/2 Cup - Water, hot
1/4 Cup - Soy Sauce (I used Kikkoman Low Sodium Soy Sauce)
1 tbsp - White Sugar
1 tbsp - Honey
1/2 tbsp - Chinese Five Spice (contains: star anise, anise, ground ginger, cinnamon, and cloves)
1/2 tsp - Garlic Powder
1/2 tsp - Onion Powder
10 drops - Red Food Dye/Coloring *Optional*

Combine ingredients into a container and stir until sugar dissolves. Place meat of choice into the container (pork, chicken, duck, hotdog, spam, ribs, etc) and close container with a lid. Marinade for at least 30 minutes or overnight, be sure to move your container around to insure the meat inside gets covered in the marinade as this will more than likely turn your meat a red color (if you used the food coloring). Once the meat has been marinated cook appropriately and enjoy.

Char Siu Spam over white rice

Char Siu hotdogs with toasted sesame seeds

*When I fried up my marinated chopped spam pieces I poured out everything in the container into my frying pan and cooked on medium heat for 7-12 minutes until all the excess marinade had basically evaporated. I generally serve this with white rice but you can serve it with whatever you like. You can also add in some diced spring onion to add a bit of color to the dish. You could also try adding in or all of the following additional ingredients to this recipe... Hoisin sauce, black pepper, ground cumin, garlic salt, sherry or rice wine, or even toasted sesame seeds (as seen above). I'm not sure I have perfected this recipe as of yet but I do enjoy eating it!