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© Copyright 1995-2023, Clay Irving <clay@panix.com>, Manhattan Beach, CA USA
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Recipe from: Daigo Tanaka
Japanese cuisine, yakibuta, also known as Chinese char siu, is a slowly cooked juicy pork that goes well with ramen noodles or white rice. The word yakibuta and char-siu are literally translated as barbecued pork, but the process of making it is not a typical barbecuing. It takes an hour and half to two hours to prepare, but it's not much work, and it is definitely worth.
2 pounds pork tenderloin
2 to 3 tablespoons soy sauce
⅓ cups Chinese Shaoxing rice wine or Japanese cooking sake
3 tablespoons mirin
1 tablespoon sugar
1 or 2 stalks green onion—use green part only
several slices ginger
1 clove garlic
1 or 2 dried fruit of star anise
1 small sheet dried kelp
Tie the pork like ham. This will prevent pork from crumbling while it is cooked. In a bowl, mix soy sauce, rice wine, mirin, and sugar. Adjust the amount of each ingredient as you taste. Don't make it too salty by putting too much soy sauce. Keep it as little as you just notice its flavor. In the same way, don't put too much mirin or sugar. If you put too much of those, use rice wince or water to weaken the taste.
Put green onions, ginger, garlic, star anise, and dried kelp into a ziploc bag. Put pork tenderloin in the ziploc bag, and carefully pour the liquid mixture into the ziploc bag. Make sure the pork soaks well in the liquid. Marinade in the refrigerator for 1 hour.
Take the pork out of the ziploc—don't discard the sauce!. In a pan, fry the surface of the pork until it become brownish. This is only for keeping the juice in the pork from coming out while boiling. So, you don't have to cook through.
Add water in the pan. Only the bottom half of the pork should be under the water. Then pour marinade into pan. Only the marinade should be poured, and no other ingredients should be in the pan.. Heat the pan with strong flame until it comes to boil. If you see scum on the surface, remove it with spoon.
Keep heating the pork for 45 minutes to an hour. Turn over the pork time to time to heat each side. Try piercing the pork with a fork. If the juice is semi-transparent, the pork should be ready!
Slice the pork to serve. You can keep the pork in the refrigerator for at least a week or longer. You can freeze it for longer preservation. Keep the sauce from with pork so you can use to taste the pork—Or, it makes a great base for soup.