Technique #86: Make Chinatown-Style Roasted Barbecue

Or char siu, slabs of Cantonese barbecued pork with their lacquered red sheen, hallmark chewiness, and spiced, caramelized flavors.

Attempts to replicate the traditional cooking method of slow oven-roasting for both of these dishes lead to a lot of smoke alarms going off.

So we developed our own technique that uses moist heat first to produce delicious, savory dishes without disaster.

When making duck, we first pierce the skin all over and steam the bird, allowing much of its abundant fat to render. We then grill-roast it, keeping the cooking environment (and the meat) moist while allowing the fat to continue to render and the skin to turn crisp.

Placing the bird over a disposable pan ensures that the fat doesn’t hit the coals, reducing flare-ups.

We also employ a two-step glazing method. A sweet glaze is crucial, but the traditional honey burned and turned the duck skin black on the grill.

So the first glaze has soy sauce, sesame oil, and five-spice powder to flavor the bird as it cooks. The second glaze of honey, vinegar, and soy sauce goes on last, to darken to that deep mahogany color.

Char siu literally means “fork roast,” since it is usually skewered with long forks and roasted over a fire. Instead of marinating whole pork belly slabs or rib racks for hours and then slow roasting, our technique calls to cut rib racks into individual ribs and braise them right in their salty, glutamate-packed marinade before roasting.

The heat helps the potent flavors penetrate the meat quickly, so the braising time doesn’t need to be long. Then, further reduce the braising liquid to a flavorful glaze and use that to baste the individual ribs for roasting.

Arranging them on a wire rack set in a rimmed baking sheet with a bit of water in the bottom both allows for even heat circulation and catches the drips of fat and glaze that would otherwise cause billowing smoke.