The man was in the mood to cook. I was all up for pasta for dinner. Just an aglio e olio with grilled eggplants and miso, and wholewheat spaghetti. (I'd just call it ナススパゲッティ! Heh.) Pasta would have been more than sufficient for me. But the man also wanted to try out a recipe for Japanese chashu (チャーシュー).
I asked him not to use a fatty cut or make the marinade too sweet. I want to chew my meat and cannot deal with fatty and sweet char siew, or those chashu in ramen or soba. The man used pork shoulder. Two pieces, uncured, of course. He braised them for hours. Then, he made the mistake of firing it up high. Erm, no need lah. It would dry it out. It's hard to get that external char in a home oven like ours. He decided that next time he wouldn't do that anymore, and just keep the temperature even as the meats were braised throughout.
Pasta turned out great. While the eggplant and some zucchini were tossed with the pasta, the man also separately grilled a few slices of zucchini, just for texture. Miso was liberally doused everywhere. Hahaha. Two pieces of pork shoulder in one meal were too much for us. I don't take that much meat. My stomach space was given to the pasta.
The other piece of meat was left whole and stored in the fridge for dinner two days later. For that meal, I had the rice cooker sort out takikomi gohan with pumpkin and chestnuts, and did a simple stir-fry of Shanghai greens. That particular piece of chashu sat in its juices within an airtight box, and it was steamed just before the meal, causing the meat to be served moist and we thought it tasted even better than when we first had it.
Overall, the chashu wasn't too bad, really. Definitely edible. There was still an acceptable amount of fats though. Those parts around fattier bits were perfectly braised soft and not dry at all. I was quite happy that the lean parts were more stringy and were a tad dry because the fat melted and died. Hahahaha.
I asked him not to use a fatty cut or make the marinade too sweet. I want to chew my meat and cannot deal with fatty and sweet char siew, or those chashu in ramen or soba. The man used pork shoulder. Two pieces, uncured, of course. He braised them for hours. Then, he made the mistake of firing it up high. Erm, no need lah. It would dry it out. It's hard to get that external char in a home oven like ours. He decided that next time he wouldn't do that anymore, and just keep the temperature even as the meats were braised throughout.
Pasta turned out great. While the eggplant and some zucchini were tossed with the pasta, the man also separately grilled a few slices of zucchini, just for texture. Miso was liberally doused everywhere. Hahaha. Two pieces of pork shoulder in one meal were too much for us. I don't take that much meat. My stomach space was given to the pasta.
The other piece of meat was left whole and stored in the fridge for dinner two days later. For that meal, I had the rice cooker sort out takikomi gohan with pumpkin and chestnuts, and did a simple stir-fry of Shanghai greens. That particular piece of chashu sat in its juices within an airtight box, and it was steamed just before the meal, causing the meat to be served moist and we thought it tasted even better than when we first had it.
Overall, the chashu wasn't too bad, really. Definitely edible. There was still an acceptable amount of fats though. Those parts around fattier bits were perfectly braised soft and not dry at all. I was quite happy that the lean parts were more stringy and were a tad dry because the fat melted and died. Hahahaha.
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