25 July 2020

One year ago, Oscar asked me to make 黯然銷魂飯 "Sorrowful Rice" for the students. I hesitated a while. Should I replicate the Cha Chaan Teng’s version or twist it to my own version? I’ve never made it anyway. Let’s see what ingredients make it so distinctive first.

Most recipes call for hoi sin sauce and maltose but I don’t usually use those two ingredients in cooking. We can simply get the saltiness from sea salt, the umami from red bean curd and the sweetness from brown sugar. The strong Asian aroma comes from a range of Chinese spices. I would keep them. I would also use paprika instead of colourants to add a bit of red colour to the meat.

Not including the night for the pork shoulder to soak up the marinade in the fridge, from collecting all the ingredients to roasting the meat, it takes about 1.5 hours. How did it turn out? Is it worth making it at home? This is what I left on our Instagram "It's not the best Char Siu in the world but it tastes Hong Kong.". It's definitely worth the effort.