Japanese-Singaporean Soba

I have made chashu (チャーシュー) the way most Japanese ladies make them quite often as the kids love it. I normally use pork belly and then roll the whole thing and then cook that in a sauce of soya sauce, mirin, sake, rock sugar, ginger and onions. But I thought we can improve on it.

The skin is not the favourite part of the chashu, especially by Western palette.  I do love that slimy feel of that skin and the lard is often delicious boiled, too. But that’s quite an acquired taste and people who are less ‘trained’ would still prefer some crunch.

And so for the soba dish, the crunch element will come from the pork skin, and pork croutons made from the lard. And the chashu is still delicious and yummy minus the lard and skin. This is an idea borrowed from Singaporean noodles, which tend to have these pork croutons. The pork crackling is an idea from Thai and also westerners.

This recipe is wonderful, the sauce is a nice break from the usual soba sauce, served as a gravy rather than a broth.  Since it uses the standard Japanese sauce base, it is distinguishly Japanese. It should be well-loved once you’ve made it, and probably will make it again and again.