Poke / Japanese Char Siu Marinade

Song:  Hawaii Five - O

Why the Hawaii Five - O song?

Poke is the Hawaiian name for a raw seafood salad

 or boiled or raw seafood over rice.

This restaurant 'Poke King'...

 just opened up down the mountain...

and but a few miles from us.

I first tried it with my family.

We loved it.

I then took my mother there that night.

We both had this particular Poke...

(many choices as to the main proteins)...

Boiled Octopus, Boiled Shrimp, and Tofu...

over white rice.

I also had green onions and crab salad added to the tops...

and we had the Truffle Ponzu mixed in with the meats.

It was absolutely delicious...and nutritious.

Also...

when I lived in Hawaii...

the largest population group by ethnicity was the Japanese...

but there was also a lot of other Asian groups there.

So, naturally...

dishes fusing the groups emerged.

I am not saying this particular Asian fusion of Japanese and Chinese

(Japanese Char Siu)

had come out of Hawaii (I don't know)...

however...

there are most certainly similar dishes from Hawaii.

The following recipe for Japanese Style Char Siu was modified from

an internet recipe, by my wife.

I then further modified it to put more of the flavors my mother and I love.

The recipe I will give you will be the one my wife modified to her taste.

This is a very easy recipe...

however, although the making of the marinade and the cooking process 

is very quick...

the actual marination of the meat takes five days.

First...

get the smaller cuts of boneless pork loin filets.

Each should be between 1 - 2 lbs.

I had my mother cut each of these loins in half so they would fit into the 

containers we had for the five day marination.

Now...

the recipe is for one 1-2 pound pork loin

 (remember...this is the one my wife uses):

Japanese Char Siu

Ingredients:

 1-2 lbs. of boneless pork loin

Marinade (marinate for 3-5 days):

Mix the following ingredients together:

Sugar:  1/3 cup

Soy sauce:  2 Tablespoons

Sake:  1 Tablespoon

Salt:  1 Teaspoon

Miso:  1 Tablespoon

Honey:  1 Tablespoon

Sesame Oil:  1 Tablespoon

Green Onions:  2 - 3 stalks cut into 1 - 2 inch sections

Mix thoroughly and apply to the pork in a covered container

and let marinate in the refrigerator for 3-5 days.

This will form a paste with which you will then coat the pork.

Be sure to turn and re-coat the meat at least once a day 

to ensure complete marination.

Cooking process:

Preheat oven to 325 F

Put the marinated meat (not the marinade) into an uncovered roasting pot 

and roast for 20 minutes per pound.

When cooking is done:

Take out from oven

Cover the roasting pot and let set for 20 minutes

(called resting...it allows the meat to re-obsorb the meat juices

which had been cooked out of it).

You will then thinly slice the pork to make Char Siu

This meat is delicious by itself as a snack...

or with rice or somen, or on top of ramen.

It should be tender, and have a slight honey taste.

Now...

what I have done is to add an additional step.

I will explain the rationale...

as it is, as it stands, just a hypothesis.

I am in the process of testing my hypothesis...

and I will give you the result in a week or so.

You see...

with the process my wife uses...

the paste draws out the liquid in the meat and the moisture in the paste partially 

replaces the meat juice near the surface.

What I reason from this is that due to natural osmosis...

the liquid is at a higher concentration in the paste...

and so, in order to balance out the imbalance...

the lower concentration transports to the area of higher concentration (osmosis).

However...

since there is very little moisture in the paste...

by my adding an additional step of a one day high liquid solution

of the marinade to the process...

the extra honey, sake, and miso solution should be able to infuse the meat

to a much greater depth and with much greater ease...

resulting in a much more tender, flavorable, and moist, Char Siu.

Rationale:

As I had gone over briefly...

Osmosis happens when a liquid is at a lower concentration 

than another solution...and it may diffuse into it to try to establish equilibrium.

In Osmotic water filtration 

(rare...water purification systems usually use Reverse Osmosis)...

the water must go through a semi-permeable membrane to establish

solution equilibrium.

This filters out impurities.

In reverse osmotic systems (the norm)...

pressure is used to force a higher concentrated solution

through a semi-permeable membrane to filter in reverse

of what natural osmosis would do.

Now...

since the membrane of the meat is much more permeable...

this allows the transportation of the liquid out of the meat 

to happen more easily.

And...

this is what should make the difference...

since there is an abundance of a liquid solution surrounding the meat...

as the liquid is drawn out of the meat...

the miso, honey, and sake solution will be drawn in to replace

the outgoing fluid...until equilibrium is established...

due to water tension.

What does this mean in practical terms?

The meat should be deliciously infused with the solution deep inside the meat...

thereby fully flavoring everything instead of just near the surface.

Warning:

This is just my hypothesis as of now...

as based upon the rationale I had provided above.

Only after successful testing may I call it a theory  :)

So...

in practical terms...

if you are unwilling to wait for my results...

I recommend you just follow my wife's recipe...

as it already has a tried and true result.

So why would I mess with a proven method of deliciousness?

I hate following directions as is.

I've got to tinker with it to try to make improvements...

and to make it my own.

What do you expect?

I'm a guy  :)

I had my mother cut the onions.

 I then added the ingredients of the marinade and mixed them in a bowl.

(I had to...of course...triple the recipe...as I had 3 pork loins...

and I added more miso and honey...as we love these flavors).

And...

in order to provide the needed amount of liquid to keep the loins fully submerged...

and to keep the solution strong enough...

I multiplied the amounts of the honey and miso to 20x the amount...

and the sake...to the tops of the meat.

---------- 

Do not use water to fill the liquid.

This will lower the concentration of the solution...

and so, will slow the osmotic process.

Besides...

the sake will also add flavor.

------------

Again...

this is just my extra preliminary step.

Tonight...

I will replace the marinade with the marinade paste...

however...

I will still add extra amounts of miso and honey for a more full flavor.

This will ensure that the cooking times will not be thrown off...

and especially...

that the meat will be a Char Siu...

and not a partially boiled roast due to too much moisture.   :)

Also...

the cooking times should still remain at the recommended amount because...

the per pound recommendation is talking about one solid piece.

It is to ensure the thorough cooking of a piece of meat which has depth to it

as a result of being a certain poundage...

and, as most meats have a similar shape...

the surface area is about the same per pound.

As each piece is about one pound...

it doesn't matter how many individual pieces I have (within reason)...

as they will have the same depth and surface area...

and the output of the oven can more than compensate for additional pieces 

without losing the overall heat in the oven...

as the amount of meat cannot absorb the heat faster than the oven can replace it

(again, I am not talking about industrial cooking where much higher oven outputs 

are necessary to make up for the tens of pieces being cooked at once).

So...

last night...

with the pork loins submerged in the preliminary liquid solution...

I went back on this night to prepare and apply the marinade paste

for the final four days of marination.

-------------------

I have just come back from making my mother's supper...

and from completing the final stage of marination.

Now...

I am doing the first step mostly to prove or disprove my hypothesis...

because...again...

I am a guy.

This is what guys love doing...experimenting  :)

-------------------

If it doesn't make that much difference...

I will simply omit the first step of marination...

and go directly to this last step...

as below:

First...

I drained the previous liquid...

and I started making the marinade paste.

I had used much more than the recipe demanded in the miso, honey, and sugar.

I wanted to ensure the meat would be fully submerged in the paste.

Why?

Because...

again...

I'm a guy.

In general...

we all hate having to do something more than once.

We want to ensure we get it right the first time...

and in ensuring it happens...

we generally over engineer things from the beginning.

If you are a guy...

or you know a guy well...

you already know what I am talking about.

When we start a project...

we want to ensure we have more than enough of everything...

just so we can make it better with more.

You know our motto:

If a little is good...

more is better...

and...

If one is good...

two is better  :)

So...

in following this great tradition of the average male... :)...

when the recipe called for two cups of sugar for the amount of meat I used...

I added four cups!

Where it called for six tablespoons of honey...

I added approximately a cup!

With the miso...

it also called for just six tablespoons...

and I added approximately two to three cups worth!

I wanted to make extra paste to completely cover the meat...

 so I wouldn't have to turn over the meat...

and so, making the whole marinating process automatic

(another guy thing...we love automating processes  :)

The paste is the consistency lying squarely between the consistency of the miso...

and the honey.

I kept spooning the marinade over each group of meat until each was filled.

Now...

I won't have to turn over anything.

Of course...

it also means that I had used a lot more material...

but, I didn't want to risk the meat drying out in the fridge at my mother's...

as I could not monitor it on a regular basis.

So...

in this case...

most definitely...

more was better!  :)

In another four days...

I will be slicing and tasting the result...

and I will report the result in a future article.

---------------

Even though we had our fill of spaghetti tonight...

we had eaten a little early...

so...

I will be returning to my mother's sometime around midnight...

for some midnight madness.

I will bake her a pizza...

and we will watch a movie together.

My mother gleefully accepted my proposal for pizza and a movie tonight...

and so, she is very much looking forwards to midnight.