Char siu

Barbecued pork
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese	叉燒
Simplified Chinese	叉烧
In Mandarin (Pinyin)	chāshāo
In Cantonese (Jyutping)	caa1 siu1
In Min Nan	Char-sio
Japanese name
Kanji	叉焼
Kana	チャーシュー

Barbecued pork, also known as BBQ pork, cha siu, Char siu and char siew, is Cantonese-style barbecued pork. It is usually made with long strips of boneless pork, typically pork shoulder. The distinctive feature of char siu is its coating of seasonings which turn the meat dark red, or occasionally burnt, during cooking. The seasoning mixture for char siu usually includes sugar or honey, five-spice powder, red food colouring, soy sauce, and sherry or rice wine.

The words char siu literally mean "fork roasted", which is the traditional preparation method. Long forks hold the meat in a covered oven or over a fire. Char siu is rarely eaten on its own, but used in the preparation of other foods, most notably char siu bau, where it is stuffed in buns, and char siew rice (or Barbecued pork with rice), where it is served with rice. It is also common to serve with other roasted items such as chicken with soy sauce (油雞) and sliced steamed chicken (切雞) (as 叉雞飯, cha gai fan, or BBQ pork and chicken with rice), salted egg (鹹蛋), roasted pork and roasted duck. Besides rice it is also served with noodles, such as lai fun (瀨粉), Shahe fen (河粉), wonton noodles. In some locations such as in Singapore, it is also commonly combined with other dishes such as Hainanese chicken rice.

Char siu is common in places with a large Cantonese-speaking community, including southern China, Malaysia and Singapore. It is also commonly served in Chinese restaurants and food markets in other parts of the world. In Japan, where the variant is known as "chashu", it is typically prepared with a sweet honey and soy sauce coating, but without the red sugar and five-spice preparation.