{"id":4719,"date":"2018-04-25T09:00:49","date_gmt":"2018-04-25T15:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/villasentieri.com\/?post_type=recipe&p=4719"},"modified":"2026-09-02T10:58:44","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T17:58:44","slug":"chinese-roast-pork","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/villasentieri.com\/index.php\/2018\/04\/25\/chinese-roast-pork\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese Roast Pork"},"content":{"rendered":"

April 25, 2018<\/span><\/p>\n

Throughout junior year in college I predominantly ate Chinese, West Indian, and Sri Lankan food.\u00a0 To be sure, I made Italian and a smattering of other cuisines but that year was really an intensive study in three cuisines.<\/p>\n

My roommate, Ray Hugh, was from Guyana.\u00a0 His grandparents emigrated from China to Guyana around 1870.\u00a0 My grandparents emigrated from Italy (on my mother\u2019s side) and Slovakia (on my father\u2019s side) to the United States a few decades later.<\/p>\n

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Ray Hugh in 1975 from the first page of my 1975 scrapbook<\/span><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I learned a lot about Chinese food, especially Hakka Chinese, from Ray.\u00a0 We also went to Chinese restaurants regularly so my palate got accustomed to the different regional cuisines of China.\u00a0 We spent six weeks the summer after junior year staying with his mother outside of London.\u00a0 I learned a lot about Chinese (and West Indian) food from her.<\/p>\n

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As for West Indian, my primary influences were, again, Ray Hugh, Valrie Tracey, and Gloria Lannaman.\u00a0 Though located on the South American mainland, Guyana was administered (then called British Guiana) as part of the British West Indies and it definitely has a West Indian cultural heritage.<\/p>\n

Valrie and Gloria were from Jamaica.\u00a0 I posted my version of a recipe for Valrie\u2019s Easter Bun<\/a> a few weeks ago.\u00a0 If I get in the right frame of mind, I\u2019ll post my interpretations of her recipes for curry goat and for home-salted mackerel cooked in coconut milk.\u00a0 Admittedly, these may be a stretch for most of my readers but they fulfill the blog\u2019s goal of highlighting traditional recipes from around the world.<\/p>\n

From Gloria, I got a wonderful pot roast recipe with allspice (called pimento in Jamaica) and a shockingly pink rum punch recipe.\u00a0 I still use her technique for saut\u00e9ing baked ham with caramelized onions and Scotch Bonnet peppers for a quick supper or served on crackers with cocktails.\u00a0\u00a0 These will all appear in due course.<\/p>\n

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Valrie Tracey in 1975, also from the first page of my 1975 scrapbook<\/strong><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As I\u2019ve described several times, Nanacy and Reggie Rajapakse<\/a> were my primary instructors in the art of Sri Lankan cooking\u2026along with a couple of cookbooks by Charmaine Solomon, who Nanacy and Reggie knew.<\/p>\n

For much of the summer that Ray and I spent with his mother near London, we explored the city almost every day.\u00a0 We\u2019d have breakfast, walk to the train station in New Malden, and take the train to London.\u00a0 We\u2019d be home for dinner, usually.\u00a0 Lunch was frequently at a restaurant in Chinatown\u2014you know, the Cantonese ones with roast pork, roast ducks, and other roasted animal parts hanging in the window.\u00a0 That was where I honed my taste for Cantonese roast pork\u2014minus the bright red food coloring.<\/p>\n

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In these restaurants, lunch was a bowl of rice and some sort of roasted meat, hacked to bite-size bits with a very heavy cleaver.\u00a0 There was nary a vegetable in sight.\u00a0 When I mentioned to Ray, once, that a vegetable would be nice, he walked over to the chef, who was putting together everyone\u2019s lunch right inside the front window of the store, with rows of glistening roasted meat on hooks hanging in front of him.\u00a0 The chef pulled a few greens from somewhere, dipped them in a bubbling cauldron of broth momentarily, and put them in my bowl along with the rice and roast pork.\u00a0 He was very gracious about it but I realized that vegetables were not the point of a restaurant like this.\u00a0 From then on I was happy to eat rice and roasted meat for lunch, choosing to balance out my diet at the other two meals of the day.<\/p>\n

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The third and final picture on the first page of one of my 1975 scrap book is this picture of me<\/span><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Friday, July 4, 1975 was one of the days we did not go into London from Ray\u2019s mother\u2019s house.\u00a0 Instead, we stayed home and made hamburgers and hot dogs (well, that being England and then being then, they were bangers<\/a>, really) and a few of the usual trimmings.\u00a0 Ray and I along with his mother and two sisters, and his younger sister\u2019s boyfriend, Clive, sat outside in the charming little backyard (what the Brits call a \u201cgarden\u201d) eating.\u00a0 Clive asked what we were celebrating.\u00a0 I told him we were celebrating the independence of the United States from Britain.\u00a0 That didn\u2019t go over really well but he was a good sport about it.<\/p>\n

From that summer of eating Cantonese Roast Pork in London\u2019s Chinatown, I got home wanting to be able to make it.\u00a0 Ray and I roomed together senior year as well.\u00a0 That\u2019s when I perfected my recipe for roast pork.\u00a0 It involves marinating strips of pork overnight then hanging them from hooks in the oven and roasting them.\u00a0 It sounds fussy, but it\u2019s really quite easy.<\/p>\n

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Stainless steel “s” hooks are the best for hanging the pork in the oven<\/span><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This Cantonese-style roast pork is totally different from Ray\u2019s Five Spice Roast Pork<\/a>, which I like equally well.

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Chinese Roast Pork<\/h2>\n
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This roast pork is not as red as the roast pork often seen in Chinese restaurants as it does not use artificial coloring. Thick-cut boneless pork chops work well. It is best for the meat to have a layer of fat to provide some moisture while roasting. The thin fat cap should not be removed. The difference in taste between Chinese rice wine, sake, and pale dry sherry is not really noticeable in this dish given the other very flavorful ingredients. Good quality Chinese rice wine can be difficult to find. I prefer a reasonably-priced, good-quality domestic Sake, such as Sho Chiku Bai. Do not use the unfiltered (nigori) sake, however.<\/div>\n
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Prep Time <\/span>15 minutes<\/span><\/span> mins<\/span><\/span><\/div>
Cook Time <\/span>1 hour<\/span><\/span> hr<\/span><\/span><\/div>
Total Time <\/span>1 day<\/span><\/span> d<\/span> 1 hour<\/span><\/span> hr<\/span> 15 minutes<\/span><\/span> mins<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div>\n
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Servings: <\/span>3<\/span> people<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Ingredients
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